Bringing Better Prepaid Card Programs to Global Markets

Over the past few years, we have made tremendous inroads outside our home turf here in the US. The growth of prepaid and mobile financial services is indeed a global phenomena and we are now helping organizations in six continents power their programs.

Since announcing our strategic alliance with Visa in the Asia Pacific, Central Europe, Middle East and Africa (APCEMEA) region, we have been working even harder to bring better processing solutions to more global markets.

We brought on a new General Manager, International, Scott Salmon. We’ve inked deals with some recognizable names. And just recently, we opened a new office in Singapore.

We thought it would be useful to share with you in more detail what exactly we’ve been up to and what we have been hearing from the markets we serve. Who better to tell that story than Scott, the i2c executive responsible for bringing our payment processing solution to more companies around the world. He sat down recently with pymnts.com to tell that story. You can read the details here, but I wanted to mention a few key points he makes about what’s happening with prepaid globally:

1. Prepaid is evolving rapidly in emerging markets

With market requirements and consumer demands shifting rapidly, companies offering prepaid products will need to position themselves to react quickly. Having the ability to modify programs without the changes take months to roll out is absolutely key.

2. Organizations of all types are looking at the value of prepaid

Banks are not the only organizations playing in this space. Non-bank organizations such as governments and retailers are also leveraging prepaid to their benefit, and we expect to see that trend continue. Because it is such a flexible product that can be applied in many different situations, prepaid’s appeal is quite broad.

3. Data intelligence on cardholders and portfolio performance is more important than ever

In the interview, Scott provided an overview of a talk he gave at Cards & Payments Middle East in Dubai this past spring. The topic was Five Ways to Profitability in the Prepaid Business, and three of the five points deal directly with data intelligence. Having the ability to get your hands on critical information about cardholder behavior and trends is key, as is using that data to develop a lifecycle approach to managing the program and also segmenting the cardholder base.