As of 2021,  the percentage of people aged 15+ who have a credit card in 121 countries where data was available ranged from 0% in Afghanistan to a high of 82.74% in Canada. The average percentage across the 121 countries was 22.6%.* We’ll look at two applications in two different credit card units of a multinational bank and another for improving credit card payments.  Then we’ll finish with a video of how today’s credit cards are made.

*Source 

Six Sigma Methodology Applied to Credit Card Account Opening

In a paper titled “Credit Card Account Opening Excellence Using Six Sigma Methodology” author Samsul Islam discusses DMAIC methodology from the perspective of the New Accounts Unit of the Credit  Card Department of a leading multinational bank.

The paper includes:

  • Project Charter
  • Credit Card Opening Process
  • Requirement Feature Matrix for Credit Cards
  • SIPOC Diagrams (Levels 1 and 2) of the Card Operations Department
  • Number of Credit Card Applications Processed Per Employee Per Month
  • Number of Received and Processed Credit Card Applications in Each Day and Their Status in the System
  • Number of Errors Made in Each Day in Keying-In Credit Card Applications
  • Pareto Chart of Keying-in Errors of the New Accounts Opening Process
  • Explanation of the Key-in Errors Used in the Pareto Chart
  • Cause and Effect Diagram of Key-in Errors
  • Improvement Selections Matrix
  • Managerial Implications and Lessons Learned

You can read the paper here.

[Citation: Islam, Samsul. (2016). Credit Card Account Opening Excellence Using Six Sigma Methodology. International Journal of Lean Six Sigma. 7. 294 - 323.]

Business Process Improvement in Credit Card Issuing Unit

In a case study titled “Business Process Improvement Of Credit Card Department: Case Study Of A Multinational Bank” authors Samsul Islam and Daud Ahmed discuss a study to describe the As-Is business process and propose a To-Be process for the bank’s credit card issuing unit.

Tools Used Include:

  • SWOT Analysis
  • Fishbone Diagram
  • Process Flow Diagram
  • SIPOC

You can access the case study here.

[Citation: Samsul Islam, M. Daud Ahmed, (2012),"Business process improvement of credit card department: case study of a multinational bank", Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 18 Iss: 2 pp. 284 – 303]

Using Six Sigma to Improve Credit Card Payments

In a master’s thesis titled “Improvement of Credit Card Payment: A Case Study of the Pizza Delivery Company” author Noppadol Tilokavichai discusses the application of Six Sigma methodology to improve credit card payments by reducing the number of credit card rejections.

After covering the basics of Six Sigma and DMAIC, the thesis includes:

  • Number of Rejected Credit Cards by Month
  • Food and Beverage Delivery Process Flow
  • Cause and Effect Diagram for Lost Revenue from Rejected Credit Cards
  • Pareto Chart of Rejected Credit Card Causes
  • Project Cause Savings Matrix

You can download a copy of the thesis here.

Manufacturing Today’s Credit Cards

See how credit cards are made in this video from How It’s Made.

You can watch the video here.

 

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