Thames Card Technology (TCT), a card manufacturer for companies including MasterCard and Visa, has announced it has received a growth capital investment of £3.2m ($52.5m).

They will use the investment, from independent British investment firm BGF, to finance both manufacturing equipment and senior operating and business development personnel. This will enable the firm to increase capacity and efficiency, fuelling what they call “aggressive expansion” in the international banking and prepaid card markets.

TCT is one of the UK’s largest manufacturers of secure chip credit, debit, prepaid, gift and loyalty cards, including MasterCard and Visa products, and work with organisations around the world including Lycacard, the UK Post Office and AVIS. In 2013 alone the firm manufactured over 175m individual cards in their manufacturing facilities based in Rayleigh, Essex, generating sales of £18m.

The two main areas of expansion planned are in the surging developing market and prepaid cards in Europe and beyond.

“The increasing number of banking customers in the developing world, particularly in Africa, combined with the ubiquitous migration to EMV secure chip cards presents a tremendous growth opportunity for us,” said Paul Underwood, founder and MD, Thames Card Technology.

Global prepaid card deposits nearly tripled from 2008 to 2012, according to Mercator Advisory Group, and are expected to rise an additional 120 per cent by 2015, to $168.4bn globally.

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TCT has also expanded its senior management team to include Andy Caffyn, the former CEO of Deloro Stellite Group and Avery Weigh-Tronix as non-executive chairman, Mark Bryant as investment director and Rory Pope as BGF’s representative.