UK advertising body slams digital banking co Lanistar for misleading ad
The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a complaint against digital banking company Lanistar regarding its ad claiming it offers “The world’s most secure payment card”.
In a ruling, issued today, the advertising body sided with complainants who challenged whether the claim “The world’s most secure payment card” was misleading and could be substantiated.
The ad in question appeared on Lanistar’s Instagram profile page. There was no information provided alongside the claim “The world’s most secure payment card” and, in that context, the ASA considered consumers would understand it to mean that the features of the Lanistar card were proven to be the most effective at protecting users from fraud compared to payment cards from all other providers.
The body understood from Lanistar’s response that the claim was based on their card possessing features that they believed made it more secure than other payment cards. The evidence provided by Lanistar indicated that a range of features of a previous version of the card were not available on six other payment cards. However, the evidence did not appear to relate to the Lanistar card specifically.
The ASA also noted that the number of payment cards compared was very limited and that the evidence dated from 2018. The body acknowledged that the Lanistar card may have possessed features that were not shared with other payment cards. However, it understood that the card was not yet available to use at the time the ad was published.
There was no information, therefore, available that related to how effective the card was at protecting users when used in real life, compared to all other payment cards.
The ASA said:
“Because we considered the evidence was not adequate to substantiate the claim “The world’s most secure payment card”, we concluded that the ad was misleading”.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.33 (Comparisons with identifiable competitors).
The ad must not appear again in the form complained about. The ASA told Lanistar Ltd to ensure they held adequate substantiation for claims made in their marketing communications.