Welcome to Phygital Now

The Phygital revolution isn’t coming – it’s already here. Learn how digital and physical services work together to make the customer experience faster, better, easier and more convenient.

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Whitepaper Customers want phygital payment experiences.

Our new whitepaper whitepaper outlines the rise of "phygital" payments, a fusion of physical and digital experiences in banking and payment transactions.

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About What is Phygital Now?

It’s easy to think of physical and digital banking as being in competition. They don’t have to be. They work best in collaboration. Because customers want both.

It’s also true to say that these collaborative experiences are, in a lot of people’s minds, something that’s a way off in the future. And that’s not the case. Customers are already enjoying physical and digital experiences combining to enhance their payment experiences. If that’s not true for your customers, then your business is at risk of falling behind.

Among today’s consumers, traditional banks retain high share of mind, with branch

networks, outdoor signage, and friendly faces inside. But that’s expensive. Online-only “neobanks” have lower costs of service – but lower brand recognition as a result.

The good news: somewhere between physical-only and online-only, there’s a sweet spot where they combine to offer the best of both worlds. Such a strategy is called phygital.

The catch? Phygital service must be “omnichannel” – a seamless, consistent experience as the customer switches between branch visit and phone app, laptop and letterbox.

The experiences your customers expect the brand value of physical objects like payment cards into the digital realm of websites and email, using data for insights and action. On these web pages, you’ll see how.

80 %
of neobanks see having a physical presence too as important.
Source: GlobalData Banking survey p10
98 %
of all banks see leveraging data as a business opportunity.
Source: GlobalData Banking survey p8
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4 in 10
Less than half of neobank customers use online for all their banking needs.
40 %
of neobanks see integrating phygital as a ‘major challenge’.
Source: GlobalData Banking survey p10
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When physical and digital experiences work together, every customer’s every payment moment shines.
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Whitepaper Customers want phygital payment experiences.

Here’s how to deliver them!

In a world where the fusion of physical and digital experiences is reshaping consumer preferences, the future belongs to those who understand the power of "phygital" payments.

Our latest whitepaper dives deep into this evolution, unraveling the trends that will define the future of commerce.

  • Unveiling the rise of "phygital" payments 
  • Understanding consumer shift: speed convenience, security 
  • Urgency for banks: enhance loyalty and boost revenue 
  • Modernize or perish: adapting systems to rapid payment evolution 
  • Crafting the perfect blend: navigating the decline of branch networks 
Get your copy now!
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News Thought leadership

Stories and studies on the evolving phygital landscape

Explanation of the word phygital

Outsourcing card issuance to boost efficiency

The banking landscape is more competitive than ever. How can outsourcing card issuance boost efficiency and help banks build better customer experiences?

Woman with a mobile phone in front of a digital wall

Go Digital First: make phygital work

Digital First needs to be part of every bank’s phygital strategy. Tech-savvy customers demand as much in their search for the best experience.

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Phygital banking – the key to the perfect customer experience

The way we bank has changed considerably, with people seeking the flexibility of digital, but with a human touch at key points of customer interaction. To solve this, Mehdi Heidari from G+D advocates for phygital banking, a concept that offers the best of both worlds.

Why the Future is Phygital

Read the commentary by Mehdi Heidari, Head of Product Management Digital Issuance, to learn more about how a phygital approach meets the needs of all end users, published in ICMA - the magazine of the International Card Management Association

A young couple having a mobile phone and a credit card in their hands

The future of banking: phygital use cases

Phygital customer experiences enable banks to offer the best of both physical and digital.

Woman shopping online with credit card using mobile phone.

Designing digital banking for different demographics

Customer journeys that strike the right balance of physical and digital are key to appealing to different age groups.

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Best of both worlds: Balancing digital and physical channels in retail banking

Financial Services Practice by McKinsey: Banking distribution needs to account for the evolving interdependencies between channels. Accelerating digital and upgrading the physical experience to “phygital” offers a viable solution.

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Interview: The future of banking is phygital

Payments Cards & Mobile spoke with Gabrielle Bugat, Member of Group Management Team of G+D, heading the Card and Digital Payment Business at Giesecke+Devrient,  to explain what exactly this is, what opportunities it offers and what banks need to do to be part of it.

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New G+D survey proves that the future of banking is phygital

The new survey "Opportunities in the phygital landscape" conducted by Global Data on behalf of Giesecke+Devrient (G+D) identifies the most important trends in how banks, financial institutions and financial service providers will interact with their customers in the near future. The focus is clearly on the integration of physical and digital services.

Young woman sitting at beach at night, looking at her mobile phone

The bank is where the customer is

The pandemic changed the way we access banking services. How can banks leverage technology and develop their physical presence to maximize user experience?

Confident young businesswoman using mobile phone in front of highrise financial towers in Central Business District on a fresh bright morning

The perfect customer journey in banking

As discussions surrounding the intersection of physical and digital intensify, the right approach will be instrumental for banks to evolve customer relationships and improve customer loyalty.

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Driving phygital banking transformation

At G+D’s DCX event, digital payment expert Richard Turrin and G+D’s Gabrielle Bugat came together to discuss phygital transformation.

Bank in big letters on a building

Are banks ready for the phygital future?

Discover what banks think about the trends at the intersection of physical and digital banking, from developing a cohesive customer journey to ensuring a physical presence.

Metaverse and blockchain technology concepts. Person enjoying digital payment.

Transforming the payment value chain

The payment industry is in flux. It is fast-moving and ever-changing, yet legacy issues mean that transformation can pose a challenge

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Finding a balance between digital and in-person banking

Phygital solutions could help banks to thrive by providing a seamless and adaptive service to their customers.

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How to improve the payment card activation process

Discover the benefits of digitalizing the payment card activation process.

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Resources Informa­tion into insight

See how phygital is changing the banking world for card issuers, with these industry surveys and reports.

Phygital as a Service - eBook

It can be tempting to think the digital revolution implies everything should be online – yet that’s far from always true. While digital commerce is predicted to hit 20% of global retail spending by 2025, by implication, such facts demonstrate that the physical and digital customer journeys are converging. Meanwhile the humble card shows no sign of disappearing as a payment form.

Explore different use cases of phygital in the ebook.

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Phygital payments are here. Are you ready?

Learn what consumers expect from phygital payments and what banks need to change to go phygital.

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Card Issuance of tomorrow

The way we pay is changing. Today’s customers want convenient, digital-first payment technologies that are smart, secure and simple to use.

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Phygital insights paper

Have a look at our insight paper that aggregates different views on the ongoing and coming convergence of physical and digital consumer lifestyles in the payments world.  

  • State of the art: the phygital story today
  • Success in phygital: enabling the crossover
  • The Phygital future: towards the metaverse
Download
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Key Note: How can we create a phygital customer journey?

In his keynote speech at the European Payment Conference, Rüdiger Vogt, Head of Payments 4.0 at G+D, answered this question. "While simplification is important, a whopping 72% of customers rate personalization as highly important in today's financial services landscape," Vogt mentions. Offering customers individuality is only one way into the phygital world. Learn what else there is to do and watch the whole keynote here.

 

Trend Report on phygital

GlobalData’s sector survey, involving extensive interviews with C-level professionals in both traditional banks and neobanks.

  • 26 banks surveyed across the Americas and EMEA
  • 45 interviews annotated and summarized
  • 14 informative charts and graphs compared
  • Over 30 top-level findings noted
Download
Bar Chart for Trend Report Phygital Banking

Whitepaper: the phygital landscape

This specially commissioned whitepaper explores the trends driving the sector, with notes on competitive advantages a phygital strategy enables plus recommendations for action.

  • Part 1: Six factors transforming card issuance
  • Part 2: Success strategies for a phygital future
  • Part 3: Convego® – the enabling ecosystem
Download
Illustration of a circle and cover of the white paper Opportunities in the pygital landscape

Infographic on phygital

A concise summary of GlobalData’s banking survey, with the most important points and trends identified in one graphic.

  • All 6 driving factors
  • All 4 success strategies
  • 10 selected statistics
Download
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Products Card Issuance Services

Our ecosystem of products and services that make the most of a phygital world.

The gap between a new card being approved and delivered no longer results in customer frustration.

Instant issuance lets customers print their physical card in-branch, at a kiosk, even start with a virtual card in their phone. Zero delay – and high customer satisfaction.

Card activation, card renewal, card personalisation: there are many touchpoints where customer engagement can be maximised.

Smart issuance puts them to work for you, with front-end apps and back-end infrastructure that connect every milestone on the customer journey and turn it into delight.

The payment card is an important link to your brand. No matter if your customers have opted for a credit card or debit card. Today payment cards offer so much more than just the key to fast and secure payment. Personalization, card material and many other physical and virtual services play an important role for both the cardholder and the card-issuing bank.

Let us manage your card issuance. This puts you as the issuing bank in the enviable position of being able to dedicate yourself completely to your core business and manage relationships with your cardholders.

3d model: a person hands over a credit card to another person

Convego® Instant Issuance Branch

Lets your staff print payment cards in minutes right there in the branch when the customer visits, no shuffling or searching through a stack of preprinted carriers.

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Convego® Issuance Kiosk

Customers can securely self-print their own cards wherever you put a kiosk–in-branch, in a mall, at an airport, wherever you choose. Extending your network, extending your brand.

Illustration of a cell phone with a payment card and an icon with a checkmark

Convego® Now

A digital twin of the customer’s card is created and made available right there in your banking app, ready to use while the physical card is on the way. And usable as a back-up at any time.

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Convego® Connect UX

Inventory management for a phygital age. Monitor and manage card levels throughout your service infrastructure, with detailed dashboard information per-market and per-location.

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Convego® Connect APIs

Secure and trusted Applications Programming Interfaces your own developers can use according to your needs–all compliant with Open API standards.

3D model of a smartphone showing a credit card and the text Do you want to activate your new card?

Convego® eActivate

Smarter authentication and security sends the customer their PIN without needing a physical advice letter, through website, mobile app, or simple SMS.

Illustrations of a letter with a payment card and a hollogram of a woman

Convego® Relate

Deepen customer engagement, with customized QR codes, personalized text, and timely offers on the one communication sure to be opened: the card carrier letter.

3D model of a credit card and various symbols for customization

Convego® Card Designer

Next-level customer delight that builds share-of-mind and share-of-wallet: offer customers a chance to design their own payment cards … from stock images to their own photos.

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Evolving security: Convego® tap

Answer evolving SCA guidance on two-factor authentication, with a compliant activation and authentication method that doesn’t need a branch visit.

Illustration of person receiving new card

Managed Card Issuance

Let us manage your card issuance. This puts you as the issuing bank in the enviable position of being able to dedicate yourself completely to your core business and manage relationships with your cardholders.

3d model of a pay3d model: two persons sitting together with a payment card in the backgroundment card and two persons sitting together

Issuance for Partner

Our scalable Convego Issuance Partner solutions enable you to access a wide range of our card services – including a unified software environment for the shopfloor. You can buy cards or modules from us, but you do not have to worry about the related landscape of distributed machines and software.

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FAQs Questions answered

The top 10 most frequently asked phygital questions.

A.

A phygital strategy blends the benefits of physical banking infrastructure – branches, real-world branding, payment cards – with the advantages of digital, such as easy-to-use websites and virtual payments. By doing so, today’s bank (traditional or neo) can offer a superlative customer experience at the most effective cost.

A.

Phygital allows a bank to address all parts of the customer experience, without missing out on important brand-building touchpoints like branch visits or carrier opening (for neobanks) or frictionless payments via app (for traditional banks). This closes the gaps inherent to a physical-only or online-only model where customer and business pains tend to reside.

A.

For traditional banks, it’s about making best use of digital tools to extend and deepen customer engagement, in a world where branch networks are in flux. For online-only “neobanks”, it’s about reaching into the real world of physical infrastructure to maintain a tactile presence, such as offering physical payment cards. Each approach lets a bank of either type broaden its customer appeal across its entire audience.

A.

Cost pressures on traditional branch networks and ongoing costs of legacy IT are driving large banks to “go digital”. But there’s an opposing trend for neobanks: the need to have some physical presence for a larger brand footprint, without losing the cost advantages of an online-only model. These business challenges drive this emerging landcape.

A.

There are four. Greater customer understanding through insightful combining of data points; broader business opportunities of being present on multiple channels; the ability to automate at scale; and the increased number of areas where competitive advantage can be won.

A.

Six factors are evident in the emerging phygital landscape: the rise of neobanking, the emergence of non-banking financial options for customers, the move of digital-only companies into the physical space, the need to merge services across traditional silos, the increasing number of device choices, and the effectiveness of APIs and cloud services.

A.

G+D has created a set of resources spanning informative whitepapers, up-to-date surveys with industry professionals, and an expert-led webinar. See your choices here.

A.

Yes! Download “Opportunities in the Phygital Landscape” from this website here.

A.

Convego® is the collective brand for an end-to-end set of solutions enabling banks to offer both physical banking services such as card issuance worldwide, plus a complementary set of digital services including virtual cards, secure transactions, and innovative payment solutions. Explore Convego® here.

A.

Convego® Instant Issuance brings card issuance closer to the customer, with solutions that let banks offer in-branch, at-kiosk, and at-home card delivery complete with virtual card solutions that remove the gap in customer service caused by delivery. Smart issuance takes personalization and customization several stages further, with applications that let customers create their own card designs and banks answer new use cases in the issuance space.

A.

Established in 1852 with physical locations in 32 countries and ongoing activities from 74 subsidiaries covering the entire world, Giesecke+Devrient’s 11,500 people are responsible for reliable, secure, and safe delivery of payment solutions for hundreds of global banks and other financial institutions worldwide, with a decades-long track record that speaks for itself. 

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