Gx Member News

Le prépayé a de l’avenir en France
Pendant cette période d’instabilité économique et financière, en particulier en France, il est fréquent que plusieurs opportunités d’affaires à manquer.  Dans cette édition de iQ , notre publication mensuelle d’industrie prépayé, notre expert local, Philippe Bertinchamps, CEO de Berfi Management Company et Leader de Prepaid Exchange France, partage son point de vue sur le marché français prépayés et lespossibilités offertes aux entreprises les plus dynamiques et novateurs. Cette iQ, en français, vous aidera à acquérir une connaissance plus approfondie de l'industrie prépayés dans ce marché unique européen et vous donnera une nouvelle perspective sur l'innovation - la voie européenne. Nous sommes tres contents de vous offrir cette publication en français. Cliquez sur le lien pour lire cette édition de iQ. http://www.globalprepaidexchange.com/france.php

Blackhawk Network wins a Stevie Award for its GiftCardMall.com product
Popular gifting website giftcardmall.com has been recognized for its leadership in financial services at the 8th annual American Business Awards (SM) winning the Stevie award for Website of Blog.
Talbott Roche, Senior Vice President of Blackhawk Network said of the achievement – “Our e-gift card and customizable gift card features on GiftCardMall.com have proven to be popular throughout the past year, and we look forward to continuing to find ways to enhance the consumer experience on the site." We congratulate Blackhawk Network on this achievement and wish them all the best as they continue to innovate their online product offering.
In further company news, Blackhawk Network has announced that consumers in Canada can now earn AIR MILES reward miles when they purchase gift cards at Safeway. This is another example of how initiatives that combine loyalty and gift cards are creeping into the prepaid space. Recently Global Prepaid Exchange published a research bulletin focused on Loyalty and Prepaid. If you would like a complimentary copy of this iQ, please contact Daniel Stretton

inComm has announced that it will be showcasing its market-leading capabilities in Digital Content Prepaid Cards at the Games Developers Conference Europe in Cologne on August 16 – 18. Known as the premier event of its kind in Europe, it will bring together developers and business professionals from across the world.
Interest in Digital Content Prepaid Cards is growing rapidly and Insights has published a number of articles relating to InComm’s involvement therein recently. As a product, these cards offer gaming developers the opportunity to monetize a game and bring it to life in the retail channel. Digital Content Prepaid Cards also allow users the freedom to access special content or purchase virtual items in games they are already playing and provide an alternative to using credit cards for payment.

InComm currently offers a range of products in this area, covering Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG), Social Networking and Console Gaming and partners with over 85 digital content gaming partners.

Innovative member Ceridian Stored Value Solutions (SVS) has partnered with Vehicle Administrative Services, Ltd. (VAS) to implement Maintenance Pro Plus (MPP) Direct Vehicle Maintenance and Protection Program.
In conjunction with SVS, VAS, a provider of wholesale roadside assistance and ancillary automotive benefit programs, is launching a Maintenance Pro Plus Direct Prepaid MasterCard® which will be pre-loaded with funds to allow customers ease of use when redeeming their maintenance benefits.

The product aims to provide VAS customers with many valuable automotive related maintenance benefits designed to off-set their out-of-pocket expenses. As a program, this aims to be flexible and convenient and will be the first of its kind in using a prepaid card solution to make vehicle maintenance easy for customers.

With the ever expanding functionality of prepaid cards and the blossoming of prepaid transport card programs from Prague to New York, it will not be a surprise if we see more and more leading-edge examples of prepaid type products feature in this industry.

It might seem like an odd combination, but it looks like combining these three entities will be a huge success. Loyal member First Data has teamed up with Cold Stone Creamery, an ice cream distributor, to offer a new gifting application through Facebook

Christened ‘eSocial Gift’, this new application is set to enable users to deliver multiple small items to one or more recipients with a single transaction. This application can be accessed through Cold Stone’s Facebook page or website. Once the sender has entered the site, selected the desired product and initiated the secure checkout process, the recipient will receive a gift alert which includes redemption instructions. Visiting any participating Cold Stone location, the recipient will be able to collect the eGift item by using the account number at the point-of-sale.
 
The United Kingdom Gift Card and Voucher Association (UKGCVA), has some news that we should all be excited about. According to the latest figures from its Quarter 2 Ernst & Young Market Report, voucher sales in Q2 has shown their sharpest growth ever recorded, driven by impressive gains across the board.

Reported UKGCVA voucher sales on a like-for-like basis have shown exceptional growth of 22% in Q2 2010 to £388.5m.This buoyant return to double-digit growth is somewhat surprising given the slight slowdown in sales over the previous two quarters. The UKGCVA suggests that this sharp upward trend is helped by the relative youth and dynamism of the voucher market but it is quick to add that it is also the results of the increasing popularity of new formats and channels.
Highlights of the report include:

-    Business-to-business sales up by 20%; consumer sales up by 24%.
Agents continue to make gains, with sales up 37% this quarter.
-    Leisure category is up by 11% .
-    Sales in the Retailers category leapt by 20%, impressive against overall retail sales that are only showing signs of modest growth.
-    Gift card centres/malls are the most dynamic sales channel, with sales increasing by over 70%.
-    Open Loop and Restricted Loop Gift cards remain the most buoyant voucher types, with sales now totalling £30m.     

Paypal and MOL Access Portal Berhad have launched a co-branded prepaid card in Malaysia.
 ‘The Digital Card’ is PayPal’s first co-branded prepaid card offering in the region and will allow holders to make purchases from PayPal merchants globally, without the need for a credit card. The card is being made available in over 1,100 7-Eleven stores nationwide and users will be able to top-up the card at more than 15,000 physical locations or through online banking.

PayPal has also added a suite of product features to the card to try and grow a loyal and engaged customer base. Using prepaid cards to compliment PayPal’s prepaid e-wallet is likely to increase the profitability and lifetime value of its customers, as well as its overall appeal as an alternative payment partner.

Visa has recently launched an above-the-line marketing campaign throughout the US to make consumers more aware of the benefits of using reloadable prepaid debit cards instead of cash for purchases.

Control, convenience, security and access are the keynotes of the unfolding campaign which aims to prove how Visa prepaid debit cards are able to improve money management for consumers.

According to research carried out by the Mercator Advisory Group in 2009, most cardholders do not make full use of the opportunities provided by prepaid cards. Moreover, Visa has revealed in its estimates that underserved consumers total approximately 80 million only in the US so there remains a great deal of headroom for growth.
 
At recent events and conferences attended by Insights, the importance of consumer education in the prepaid space has been continually voiced. In this instance, it is reassuring to see a tangible example of how this is being addressed. To grow as an industry, consumer education will play a huge role in influencing customer decision-making. By increasing a potential or current customer's knowledge about the prepaid industry and more specifically the various products within it, a healthy economic environment is established in which customers are well informed.

A new syndicated market research report published by Auriemma Consulting Group (ACG) suggests that prepaid cards carrying network brands (like Visa or MasterCard) are gaining in popularity in the US – but primarily as gift cards.

The Cardbeat® survey found that 42 percent of respondents said that they had received a network-branded (or open-loop) gift card, compared with 67 percent who had received a store-specified card. This is compared with only 26% of shoppers having received an open-loop card when the study was run back in 2005.
Another product variation of the general-purpose reloadable card is directed at teens and young adults, and the study suggests that this market may be poised for growth, with parents in the survey relatively receptive to the concept. About one-third were quite positive, and another third were willing to consider the product.

Cardbeat is ACG’s syndicated market research study of credit card holders, conducted monthly in the U.S. and quarterly in the U.K     

A new wave of teen prepaid cards have recently hit the US market, with the industry obviously viewing this demographic as one on which to focus. Generally teen cards are positioned to parents and teens offering a powerful tool to encourage financial responsibility. Various offerings also state convenience, parental control and safety as added benefits.

Global Prepaid Exchange recently published an issue of its iQ research bulletin on the teen prepaid card phenomenon. If you are interested in receiving a complimentary copy contact Dan Stretton.

Prepaid continues to challenge the norm
London-based prepaid card provider CorporatePay has recently announced that it has signed an agreement with Craegmoor to provide a prepaid MasterCard for staff.

Craegmoor is an organization that supports more than 4,000 people suffering from autism, learning disabilities and mental illness in addition to the elderly with assisted living, special education, nursing homes and other services. The prepaid card will be used by staff members to pay the general expenses and other costs associated with managing the group’s residential facilities.

Good luck to Myles and his team.

Heard of Hampsta?
It might come to us from the depths of the Pacific Ocean, but the hampsta prepaid program is one that has really impressed us here at Insights.

Originating in New Zealand, hampsta was one of the first globally to launch a prepaid Christmas Club offering. The program aims to drive real value to the public and the merchants involved, taking on the more established Christmas hamper companies. Over the past 2 years they have fully customized the program, with everything automated and following strict audit practices.

Along with allowing consumers to top up their hampsta card through automatic payments and direct debits, they can also use certain nationwide chain stores to make cash top ups – this allows for the possibility of any loose change going straight onto the card at point of sale.  This ability to load the card with cash top-ups at the till has been welcomed by consumers with load levels significantly increasing.

Hampsta is now in the process of rolling out a loyalty component which will enable a consumer to go into any (or selected) hampsta merchants and swipe their hampsta card and get real-time monetary rewards loaded onto their hampsta card for Christmas. This innovative prepaid product is definitely one to watch and if you are interested in an introduction to the team at hampsta please click here.

Ireland targets epayments revolution
In a move that could significantly impact the growth and uptake of prepaid cards in Ireland, the country’s main payments body has called on the government to reduce the country’s dependence on cash and cheques.

The Irish Payment Services Organization (IPSO), released new figures showing that the phasing out of cheques is accelerating, but the country remains well over the EU average for usage. Cheques still account for 66% of the value of all non-cash payments in Ireland. The EU average is only 3%.
Although the demise of the cheque may still be some way off, volumes were down by 13% in 2009 - more than double the rate of reduction in 2008.

IPSO says its latest data shows there has been a gradual shift towards electronic transactions with debit card use up by 8% and the amount of cash dispensed via ATMs declining for the first time ever, by over 11%.

With Ireland still viewed as a cash dependent society, a move away from this could see prepaid as one of the payment methods to benefit the most.     

Can prepaid attract affluent consumers?
The answer to the question above is ‘yes’, based on the findings of a new report produced by market research and consulting group Minel Comperemedia. The report suggests that many currently banked households, from a spectrum of socio-economic levels would consider using prepaid cards given sufficient incentives.

Close to 20% of respondents indicated that they would consider using prepaid cards to pay bills rather than using their bank accounts. More significantly however, is that twenty five percent of those with a household income of over US$100,000 per year said they would consider using the product to avoid overdraft and other bank fees.

Too often, we single out prepaid as being a payment mechanism for the unbanked segment of the population. While there is no doubting the benefits prepaid can bring to this socioeconomic group, we should not lose sight of the range of benefits a prepaid card brings to the consumer in any number of different applications. When specifically talking about a general purpose reloadable card, we should also remember the benefits of cash management, financial planning, no interest charges or late payment fees and money transfer.