Crowd-sourced
credit card
Billed by Barclays US as the first “crowd-sourced” credit card, the new
Barclaycard Ring MasterCard allows cardholders a say — up to a point — in
how it is managed, serviced and even marketed by participating in an online
community. ‘This could be a major step in the likely application of “crowdsourced everything” to consumer credit,’ says Wharton business and public
policy professor Jeremy Tobacman.
T
he product opened to the general public in April
[2012]. It comes with an 8% APR that applies to all
balances, including purchases, transfers and cash
advances. There’s no annual fee and customers won’t
have to pay a penalty APR if they default.
‘When we were developing this product, we were looking for
aspects of credit cards that are often complicated to explain to the
customer,’ says Jared Young, senior director of consumer markets for
Barclaycard. ‘Even if [these features] made us a little bit of revenue,
we decided to pull them out and make it as simple as possible.’
The card’s website is unclear about exactly what influence card
holders will have, but it shows a sample discussion page with a
query for users about how active community members should
be rew