Fifth Third Leads Synthesized Plastics Revival in U.S.

The fewer cards in a wallet, the merrier the cardholder will be appears to be Fifth Third Bancorp’s current card creed.

On the heels of launching a single card that masquerades as either a debit or credit card, Fifth Third made public today another reduce-cards-in-a-wallet play to benefit Cedarville University students.

Called the cedarville1card, the card merges debit card capabilities with student ID functionality. On a practical basis, the card convergence allows students to not only access school facilities and cafeteria meals, for example, but also swipe their IDs for PIN-based Fifth Third transactions.

Though Fifth Third’s card reduction approach seems to fly in the face of budding digital wallets, I admire its synthesizing card efforts that don’t require NFC’s magic touch. For one, even freeing one card out of a consumer’s wallet today is appealing because it saves space. For two, the cedarville1card is a particularly smart play for students as it helps to slightly consolidate their lives, especially considering Fifth Third Bank ATMs are located on campus. That simplification, in of itself, is a solid marketing play for making students want to stick with Fifth Third, as well as helps the bank grab a whole new crop of customers. In fact, all new students will receive cedarville1cards, and continuing students can get updated cards, too. If the student is not a Fifth Third customer, meanwhile, the card will still work as a fully functional student ID card.

Fifth Third won’t stop with Cedarville students either. According to the Dayton Business Journal, Fifth Third plans to roll out debit/student ID cards to other schools in the future. I imagine other banks could take a cue from Fifth Third, too, simply because synthesizing plastics today seems much smarter than simply waiting for cellphone wallets to take off years from now.