Collaborative Effort Makes Longtime MILITARY STAR Goal a Reality

NewMS-card

The Exchange has been providing credit solutions for the military community for 45 years, ever since it debuted the Deferred Payment Plan to help protect servicemembers overseas from predatory lenders outside the gates. When the DPP was relaunched for all branches of service as the MILITARY STAR® card in 2000, the plan was always for service members to use the card anywhere they went on installation.

But the plan kept running into the same problem: integrating the MILITARY STAR card at point-of-sale (POS) systems outside the Exchange.

“Whenever the Exchange adds in a vendor, such as Panera or GNC, those companies all have their own POS systems, and time and again, the process of integrating MILITARY STAR was extremely lengthy, challenging and expensive,” said Joseph Todd, Exchange Credit Program vice president of credit operations, who headed the expansion project. “The vendors were usually very eager to accept MILITARY STAR, but the challenges to integrating were too great to justify the business case.”

Working through integration with a single vendor company could take nine to 12 months—a process that would have to be repeated with each and every company the Exchange does business with.

“The team started tackling ideas on how we could reduce that barrier, and we knew that if we were able to work with one of the four major global credit networks, that would eliminate this obstacle of integration,” Todd said.

ECP reached to the big four credit card networks —Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express—to see what they could offer. Across the board, Discover was the best fit.

It was important that ECP retained management and ownership over the card—it’s still a MILITARY STAR card, not a Discover card and not a co-branded card. MILITARY STAR had, from 2008 to 2015, offered a co-branded card with MasterCard, which meant that it was able to be used both at the Exchange and also off-base.

Besides often causing confusion among customers, the separate co-branded card posed another problem of having two companies as stakeholders: disagreement on which cardmembers to approve or deny.

“A young E-1 who joined the military at 18 might not have any credit at all,” Todd said. “The major banks don’t want to take a risk on a shopper like that, but those are the exact people the MILITARY STAR card was designed to help.”

ECP remains the sole issuer of the new MILITARY STAR card, meaning it can still offer its industry-low APR to all cardmembers, regardless of credit score and ECP will retain full control over all credit decisions.

Once an agreement with Discover was reached, the biggest challenge was coordinating with external partners—the sister services, MWR and more—as well as all the different directorates within the Exchange—Information Technology, Finance & Accounting, Services and Food, Ecommerce, Marketing, Corporate Communication and others.

“It wasn’t quite every group at the Exchange, but it was pretty close,” Todd said. “We all had to move forward together, so it was a lot of coordinating and integrating with everyone across the board.”

ECP offered live and recorded training sessions for store associates, as well as frequently asked questions and sign kit guidance. The team also reached out to the Navy Exchange, Marine Corps Exchange and Coast Guard Exchange to ensure their associates are up to speed on the changes.

Now, 24 years after the MILITARY STAR card first launched, it can be accepted at any service, merchant or vendor across the installation that accepts Discover—and that’s only the start of the benefits.

“The most exciting part is the way we’re jumping so far forward with the card capabilities,” Todd said. “The new MILITARY STAR card is chip-enabled, so it’s more secure. It can be loaded in mobile wallets, and customers can immediately use tap-to-pay—all of that came off the shelf with Discover. Otherwise, ECP would have had to build each of those capabilities from the ground up. It’s a massive upgrade that benefits both the Exchange and cardmembers.”

The new features are especially key for younger members of the military community.

“This is what our customers want. Our younger customers, especially, expect this,” Todd said. “The MILITARY STAR card now offers a totally new and different digital experience.”

New cards are being issued to current cardmembers in waves throughout the fall, with most having their new card in-hand by Veterans Day and in time for the holiday shopping season.

 

3 Comments

  1. Julie Mitchell on October 3, 2024 at 3:05 pm

    Congratulations ECP team — terrific work!

  2. Carolyn Wingham on October 3, 2024 at 7:43 pm

    Congratulations ECP Team, I look forward to using the Brand New look of the Military Star Card, it’s going to be great to Tap and Go. Great Job.C

  3. Julie Emory on October 4, 2024 at 12:12 am

    Go ECP!!

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