Proctor: DCS rules instant debit-card market

Published October 16, 2006 at midnight

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Ever wonder where your bank debit card comes from? Chances are it got its start at an Arapahoe County company called Dynamic Card Solutions.

DCS - its parent company is Dynamic Solutions International, a data storage solutions provider - has parlayed its card- production CardWizard software into a business that controls more than 70 percent of the U.S. market for debit cards that are instantly issued at a bank or credit union branch.

More than 250 U.S. financial institutions use the software, which allows banks to instantly issue their own branded debit and credit cards to customers - no more waiting for a card to arrive in the mail.

That market share is a heady number for a company with 51 employees, nearly all of them at the DCS office in the Inverness Business Park in Greenwood Village. A few workers are at sales offices in Pittsburgh, San Diego and Raleigh, N.C.

Steve Suttman, the company's president, and Ron Zanotti, vice president of sales, recently sat down to chat with Mile High Tech Editor Darrell Proctor about the company and its status as a major player in the U.S. financial business.

• Proctor: How does technology impact your business?

Zanotti: We basically write our application to be open system. It's for a Windows-based desktop. We develop our application to be compliant. Banks want to implement mainstream technology.

Suttman: It's about software integration, integration into the host (network). Our system has to be compatible. (Banks) are risk-averse by nature.

• You said you started writing code on your software in 1996, but it took awhile for your business to take off.

Suttman: We were trying to get going, but no one was going to take a chance on (something new) before Y2K. But we really started rolling about 2001.

(Suttman and Zanotti say the privately held company's revenues have grown about 50 percent a year over each of the past five years.)

• Who are some of your company's largest customers?

Zanotti: Wachovia, Bank Atlantic (in Florida), the Colorado State Employees Credit Union, Banco Popular (Puerto Rico).

Suttman: And we have the United Nations Credit Union (in New York).

• How does your software benefit consumers?

Zanotti: We're really changing the way cards are issued in the marketplace. We're changing the whole dynamic.

We're about making banking easier for the consumer. They come into a bank, they can pick out the style of card they want, get it personalized, and walk out and use it.

It used to be you had to fill out paperwork and then wait 10 days for your card. Our software has changed all that.

And banks love debit cards. The benefit of a card is twofold. It reduces check writing. The point is to truncate the paper. And the bank makes revenue on each transaction.

• Your business has changed the way cards are issued, but it's also changing the look and feel of debit and credit cards.

Zanotti: The whole digital-imaging technology, storing high-resolution images, printing the background image on the card. We've made it so you can put a photo on the card and personalize the background.

It's about personalizing the card to a greater level.

Suttman: We're starting to see (a movement) from an embossed (raised lettering and numbers) card to a flat card. That will save the cost of embossing at the branch level.

Zanotti: How often does anyone use a card-swiper (the older manual way to process a credit- or debit-card transaction) these days? The flat card is easier and less expensive to produce, and you don't have to worry about the embossing wearing off in your wallet.

• You've not only had revenue growth, but you're expanding your borders as well.

Suttman: We expect to have our first international customers by the end of year.

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