The underserved and unbanked consumer segments
are viewed as prime targets for prepaid players worldwide, and a
new organisation, headed by several prepaid industry veterans, is
staking its claim in this rapidly growing space. Victoria Conroy
reports on Rêv Worldwide’s initiatives and its plans going
forward.
commonly known within the wider payment industry, but in prepaid
circles, they are regarded as pioneers in delivering prepaid
solutions to previously financially excluded consumers.
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Having founded US prepaid provider NetSpend in their apartment with
an investment of $750 in 1999, they were quick to recognise the
importance of reaching out to the financially excluded, and how
prepaid cards could achieve that in an efficient and cost-effective
manner. NetSpend soon became the largest provider of reloadable
prepaid cards in the US, with a network of more than 15,000
retailers, cheque cashing locations and supermarkets, all locations
with high foot-falls of unbanked consumers.
Global payment network
The Sosa brothers no longer have active roles at NetSpend, but
remain shareholders. Now, as chairman of Rêv Worldwide and CEO of
MPOWER Ventures, Roy Sosa is pulling together an impressive array
of industry players and organisations to help serve the more than 2
billion people worldwide who are currently excluded from access to
basic financial services.
Rêv Worldwide is a global network of payments companies for
underserved markets with operations in Latin America, Europe and
Asia-Pacific, and over the past few months the organisation has not
only launched a new platform to deliver payment solutions, but has
also recruited some of the payment industry’s most senior
executives.
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By GlobalData“We conceived Rêv out of the belief that everyone in the world
deserves the same access to trusted payment solutions,” says Sosa.
“With the majority of the world’s underserved living outside of the
US, we knew that bringing access to basic financial services on a
global scale would require us to focus outside of the US and to
build a platform to support it, a network capable of serving the
dreams of underserved consumers in any market in the world.”
To achieve this vision, in June 2008 Rêv launched a payments
platform focused on international underserved markets to offer
global connectivity, language and currency support to route
transactions across countries, currencies and payment types across
various form factors including cards, mobile phones, retail and
online transactions. Rêv’s premise is that new and emerging payment
technologies such as mobile phones can deliver relevant products
and services in a simple and cost-effective manner.
“Payment innovations like prepaid and mobile payments put financial
services within reach of underserved markets,” said Richard Child,
executive chair, international strategy and corporate development
for Rêv Worldwide and former executive vice-president of MasterCard
International.
“Given the rapid pace of evolution we are witnessing in the
payments industry today, our ability to expand and deliver on that
promise of financial empowerment requires not only global reach but
also the utmost speed.”
End-to-end support
Among its suite of core products and services are the development
and customisation of payment programmes tailored to the unbanked
populations in various markets, which Rêv claims will shorten
product development cycles and accelerate market adoption. Rêv’s
end-to-end support includes brand development, marketing, risk
management, regulatory compliance, product management and customer
service.
Rêv is also building up a global retail distribution and reloading
network with banks, processors, POS providers and ATM networks so
that consumers can access money by plastic, phone or online,
supporting transactions through all major payment networks
including MasterCard and Visa.
In 29 August 2008, Australian prepaid solution provider SCX Global
became the latest partner by way of a majority share investment by
MPOWER Ventures, a socially committed $100 million venture capital
fund that aims to invest in financial services for underserved
consumers, and which is headed by Sosa. SCX Global will now be
renamed Rêv Asia-Pacific and will lead Rêv’s efforts to bring
payment solutions to consumers throughout the Asia-Pacific area.
According to the Asian Development Bank, more than 300 million
households in the Asia-Pacific region lack access to basic
financial services.
In August, Rêv also announced several key executive appointments to
drive expansion in international markets. Along with Richard Child,
former president of the Latin America and Caribbean region for
MasterCard International, Rev has also recruited Juan Piña, who
joins Rêv Latin America as CEO. Previously, Piña held several
senior card executive positions at organisations including
Citibank, Banco Nacional de Mexico and MasterCard
International.
Jorge Noguera, former managing director of EFD Asia, an eFunds
company, has also joined Rêv Worldwide as vice-president
responsible for global business development efforts and operations
across the network of companies. Also jumping on board is Jacob
Claflin, who joins RêvEurope as vice-president of business
development from Euronet Worldwide’s prepaid division
PaySpot.
“These executives are vital additions to our team who bring a
remarkable breadth of collective experience and understanding of
the dynamics that drive market acceptance of new payment
solutions,” said Sosa. “They will ensure Rêv Worldwide maintains
the pace of innovation required to fulfil our mission of delivering
new payment solutions that will bring billions of underserved
consumers into the financial mainstream.”
However, it has not been a completely smooth transition from
NetSpend to MPOWER and Rêv for the Sosa brothers. In mid-29 August
2008, it was announced the new management of NetSpend had asked for
a US county district court injunction to halt the Sosas’ new
ventures, claiming that the Sosas had used confidential NetSpend
company information to build a competing business.
Others named as defendants in addition to the Sosas include MPOWER
Labs, the research and development division of MPOWER, and three
other companies the brothers founded. Richard Child, a former
NetSpend director, and former NetSpend employee John Mitchell are
also named as defendants in the lawsuit. MPOWER has vigorously
rebuffed the claims as having no merit.
