Whilst Consumers Shun Credit Cards Promotional USB Cards are Booming
The BBC reported yesterday that the Demand for credit cards is "feeling the strain" as UK borrowers turn to other forms of finance. It seems, they suggest, that credit cards are facing a "mid-life crisis" as people used debit cards, digital payments and payday loans instead.
The report from Price Waterhouse Coopers (which formed the basis of the reporting from the BBC) said that the number of credit cards in circulation fell for the first time in 2011.
These figures and sentiments are in stark contrast to the use of Credit Card USB flash drives in the promotional sector. Of course promotional USB cards are not financial instruments, there is no line of credit associated with them and you cannot use them to access money or credit. In fact, the only relationship they have with a credit card is that they are credit card shaped!! In all other respects they are inert pieces of plastic with flash memory chips embedded into them.
The growth of the USB flash drive in the shape of a credit card has been phenomenal over the past couple of years. This growth has been driven partly by continued innovation and technological advance which has reduced the thickness of the USB card to 2mm. and partly by businesses wanting to print ever complex and intricate designs on their promotional USB products.
Most “standard” USB products are lozenge shaped with a print area that is typically around 1cm x 3cm – so, if you want to print a logo, a website URL, a phone number and perhaps a marketing “strap line” on the card you start to struggle without making the font so small that it can’t be read!
On the credit card USB’ there is a nice flat print area (on both sides of the card) that is 8.5cm x 5.4cm. The whole of the surface area can be printed (print can be “full bleed” to the edge of the card) giving plenty of scope to handle complex, full colour images that look stunning.
As well as looking great the printed cards are typically carried by anyone they are given to in their wallets or purse and as such the brand printed on them gets lots of on-going exposure which is just what you want if you are paying for them.
Despite being only 2mm thick these cards can be supplied with internal flash memory ranging from 1GB all the way up to 16GB so there is no shortage of storage space on the cards.
So whilst Credit Cards are takinga bit of a hit, promotional USB flash drives in the shape of credit cards continue to take the promotions market by storm.