A new research report by Mercator Advisory Group, Operational Excellence: The Best Debit Marketing Strategy, recommends that the best way to increase debit card usage and customer retention is to improve dispute handling and reduce the incidence of false positives in fraud detection.

“Debit has gotten a bad reputation in the popular press for being unsafe and less accepted, particularly in digital channels. To counteract this sentiment, banks and credit unions are re-examining their approach to handling cardholder disputes to make it less disruptive to consumers and the underlying activity in their checking accounts. Issuers are also focused on fine-tuning their transaction monitoring tools to protect transactions without being so restrictive as to turn away too many legitimate transactions,” commented Sarah Grotta, Director, Debit Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group and author of the report.

This report has 14 pages and 5 exhibits.

Companies mentioned in this report include: CO-OP Financial Services, Mastercard, and Visa.