A gala dinner in Frankfurt
last month saw the most innovative and highest-achieving businesses
in the global payments industry recognised for their success. Here,
Cards International outlines the qualities each of the
winning companies bring to the market place.
Go deeper with GlobalData
This year’s Cards
International Awards was a world tour of payments
innovation. From ground-breaking Jamaican debit schemes to
wide-ranging Italian loyalty programmes and exciting new virtual
currencies, there are some impressive stories behind this year’s
winners.
BEST NEW PREPAID
PRODUCT
Regalocard
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By GlobalDataRegalocard has successfully
developed a remittance product based on gift cards. The system
allows senders to purchase a prepaid gift card in the US for use at
a specific retailer in Central America.
The card is tracked and activated
by the name and the mobile number of the recipient through which
he/she received the redemption PIN number needed to redeem the
funds.
Aktif Bank’s Aktif38 City
Card
Serving the city of Kayseri in
Turkey, Aktif38 is considered the most versatile prepaid city card
in Europe.
The contactless card handles
micropayments quickly and efficiently and can be used for shopping,
on public transport, at vending machines, bill payment, parking,
and even for opening and closing doors.
BEST COMMERCIAL CREDIT CARD
ISSUER OF THE YEAR
Citi corporate incentive
prepaid
After Poland, the Czech Republic
and the Middle East, Citi is making a major push with prepaid
corporate incentives in Australia.
The programme has proven to be very
effective and commercially attractive to Citi and in line with the
continued push into corporate and government prepaid
programmes.
BEST NEW DEBIT CARD OF THE
YEAR
Capital and Credit Merchant
Bank of Jamaica
Judges commended the bank for
fighting the odds. CCMB is the only one of the three commercial
banks in Jamaica to have launched its own debit card while the rest
of the country relies on the Multilink network for domestic debit
transactions.
MERGER OR ACQUISITION OF THE
YEAR
MasterCard acquisition of
Travelex prepaid
While many acquisitions have very
clear strategic benefits for the buyer, the judges felt that this
deal gave Travelex funds to invest in growth regions as well as
providing MasterCard with a strategic boost.
BEST NEW CO-BRANDED, AFFINITY
OR LOYALTY CARD
Poste Italiane/Banco
Posta
This loyalty scheme has some 20,000
merchants on-board, offering a wide range of goods and services
from petrol, to electronics, through to health care. The judges
said the programme is a straightforward and distinct
proposition.
FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF
OMAHA
First National Bank of Omaha has
built a significant portfolio of co-branded relationships by
exploiting the untapped market between large national retailers and
the local brands.
FBNO has not only exploited a
commercial opportunity but done so through innovation with a
customised reward programmes.
EDITOR’S AWARD FOR CONSUMER
FOCUS
eWise
The eWise payo mobile app enables
consumers to initiate payments for goods, services and bills online
or face-to-face, without having to provide personal financial
information to any third parties.
Apps like these could have a
similar transformative effect as ATMs had in the 1970s and 80s.
EDITOR’S AWARD FOR BUSINESS
FOCUS
Poste Italiane/Banco
Posta
The Sconti Banco Posta loyalty
scheme is hugely ambitious and wide-ranging.
The bank’s strategic approach to
engaging merchants is worthy of high praise and the results are
already showing, with a number of retailers seeing significant
results from the scheme.
MOST PROMISING NEW
ENTRANT
Facebook
Credits
Facebook has been looking to the
payments business as a way of diversifying its revenue stream,
introducing its own virtual currency, Facebook Credits, in a bid to
tap the fast growing social gaming market.
It has been a matter of months from
the initial launch to the establishment of a payment unit and
potentially of a new web currency.
MERCHANT ACQUIRER OF THE
YEAR
Elavon
The judges commended Elavon for its
joint venture with Credicard becoming the fourth merchant acquirer
in Brazil, extending the reach of its multi-currency dynamic
currency conversion platform into a high GDP growth country.
BEST NEW CREDIT
CARD
Banco Popular for its
MasterCard Platinum XTRA Card
In 2010, Banco Popular North
America (BPNA) launched its MasterCard Platinum XTRA credit card
programme. This product included a comprehensive, enhanced rewards
scheme, which imposes no restrictions on purchases.
Designed for those consumers who
use credit products in a ‘responsible’ manner, BPNA claims the
Platinum XTRA card allows clients to earn awards in a quicker
fashion.
BEST INNOVATION OR
CROSS-INDUSTRY INNOVATION
American Express/SAP
NetWeaver
American Express extended the use
of loyalty points to buy limited edition virtual goods as well as
physical and virtual game cards from Zynga, the world largest
social game community.
BEST CARD
PROCESSOR
First Data
FirstData received the award for
the development and extension of its TransArmor payment processing
solution, which represents a significant step forward for payment
processing security as it removed payment card data from the
merchant environment as part of the processing of a
transaction.
This not only reduces risk but also
significantly lowers the complexity for the merchant to achieve
PCI/DSS compliance.
SIA Group
SIA has been following an
extraordinarily successful business strategy that has seen them
reverse their fortunes and rejoin the world’s leading
processors.
The business’s recent
reorganisation was designed to focus more clearly around their
clients, with three business units – FI, Central Institutions, and
corporate and public – focused around meeting the specific needs of
each group.
SIA is looking to expand, particularly in central and eastern
Europe, by growing the operations of its Hungarian subsidiary
GBC.
