Clarity is needed for identity of card provider

PLASTIC MONEY is a great invention. It is enormously convenient to use without having to carry cash or cheque books and with statements providing more detailed information than current accounts.

Clarity in all operations is essential with users having confidence in their card issuer to run an efficient organisation with tight security.

The providers need to be open as to who they actually are and who is funding the finance behind their operation. Step forward the mysterious organisation which has been entrusted with the Asda credit card since 2012.

The supermarket group signed up with Creation Financial Services, a firm which was originally the money arm of Selfridges. The Asda paperwork refers throughout to the Solihull-based company with no suggestion that any higher or other financial body is involved.

In turn, Creation’s website does not reveal that it is actually a subsidiary of a non-UK company. Imagine then the worry Asda card holders may have to receive an email, purporting to come from Creation’s ‘Security Department’ but for it to originate from a French bank.

Such an email can say that the issuer is committed to “customer service and fraud prevention” and has blocked all transactions, warning the holder not to attempt to use the card.

Anyone who then tries to call the number given after a Friday afternoon is advised that the department is closed but no information is given as to when it will reopen. It actually does not function over weekends, perhaps the busiest days of the week for trading. This is hardly ‘customer service’.

Behind the firm lies BNP Paribas, which started life as the Banque Nationale de Paris in 1848. It needs to take an urgent look at its wayward British subsidiary. It should openly state to all clients who really funds the operation. It should not pretend that it is independent. It should immediately institute fraud prevention staff 24 hours a day.