More than half a million K-Plussa combination cards
Cooperation cards of the OP-Pohjola Group and the K-Group are in full flow. As many as 500,000 OP-Pohjola Group cards now have the Plussa feature. The total benefits of Plussa customers have also increased considerably. The Plussa special offer benefits granted in addition to the points will total over €200 million ahead of time.
"The K-Plussa reform started in spring 2007 has proceeded even better than expected. There are now over half a million cooperation cards and the Plussa special offer benefits granted in addition to the points will total over €200 million ahead of time during this year," says Niina Ryynänen, Managing Director of K-Plus Oy.
"The Plussa special offer benefits always amount to at least -10%. We want to provide Plussa customers with more and better benefits at checkouts, as over 60 percent of cardholders prefer discounts granted at the checkout. This came out in a survey conducted by TNS-Gallup for the OP-Pohjola Group and the K-Group," continues Ryynänen.
The OP-Pohjola Group cards with the Plussa feature are OP-Visa, OP-Visa Electron and OP-Visa Debit cards, and the K-Plussa MasterCard card produced by the OP-Pohjola Group. Nordea's Visa Electron cards - nearly 50,000 in all - also have the Plussa feature.
"New cards have been issued at a steady rate, more than 5,000 cards per week even during the summer. There is an obvious demand for this kind of a card," says Matti Korkeela, Executive Vice President, Card Services and Consumer Lending, OP Bank Group Central Cooperative. "We believe that the growth rate will remain the same in the future."
"It seems that the combination card increases the number of card payments at store checkouts and accordingly decreases the use of cash," says Korkeela. "Using the card gives customers two kinds of benefits: Plussa points and special offers at the K-Group's own and Plussa network stores, and OP bonuses for purchases paid with the Visa card," reminds Korkeela.
A combination card is ideal for a customer, as it makes gaining the Plussa points easy while reducing the number of cards in the wallet. It is also believed that a combination card improves customer loyalty.
Plussa points for insurances too
There are nearly 1.6 million cards of the OP-Visa family in Finland. 39% of Finns use the OP-Pohjola Group as their primary bank. About 3.6 million Finns in nearly 1.9 million households have a K-Plussa card.
Customers of Pohjola Insurance Ltd receive Plussa points for their non-life insurance premiums. 310,000 of Pohjola's customers have already reported their Plussa card numbers to Pohjola in order to receive Plussa points.
Adding the Plussa feature to the card is free of charge to the customer, and the banking secrecy is not endangered in any way. The feature can be attached at the customer's regular bank or electronically via the op.fi service. The cards with the Plussa symbol serve as ordinary debit and charge cards outside K-Group outlets too.
Cooperation between OP-Pohjola Group and Kesko started in April 2007 and covers the development of cards, payments traffic, monetary care, customer financing and Pohjola's insurance products. The aim is to develop new products and services for the customers of both groups in a diversified way.
Further information:
Niina Ryynänen, Managing Director, K-Plus Oy, tel. +358 1053 37100
Matti Korkeela, Executive Vice President, OP-Pohjola Group, tel. +358 500 602602
There are currently around 3.6 million K-Plussa cardholders in nearly 1.9 million households in Finland. The K-Plussa card is accepted at over 3,500 outlets. The K-Plussa cooperation partners include Neste, OP-Pohjola Group, Sonera, A-lehdet, Helsinki Energy, Scandic Hotels, Nordea, Finnkino, and Europcar. The number of Plussa customers keeps growing – last year the K-Group gained more than 170,000 new Plussa customers.
Kesko (www.kesko.fi) is a retail specialist whose stores offer quality to the daily lives of consumers. Kesko has about 2,000 stores engaged in chain operations inthe Nordic and Baltic countries, Russia, and Belarus.
