Banks of the Future? - The Convenience Stores of Today!
Chicago technology firm announces partnership to provide lower cost financial services to large population of unbanked in America.
CHICAGO, IL (PRWEB) April 7, 2005 -- eSpeedient Processing Solutions, LLC. a
Chicago-based card management and payments processing firm today announced it
has teamed with US Benefits Corporation of Dallas TX to provide state of the
art, prepaid card programs to target the 20M+ population of unbanked or
underbanked individuals in the United States.
eSpeedient was tapped by
US Benefits to provide back-end card management and transaction processing
capabilities for several payroll and prepaid card programs that US Benefits will
deliver to their client base. One such client, Prepaid International Network
(PIN) of Green Bay, WI, will use the platform to support a prepaid ATM/Debit
product called WORLDCA$H which can be used by employers as a payroll card, or as
an individual, prepaid card which can be “loaded” by cashing a paper paycheck at
over 2500 convenience stores, gas stations and other retailers across the North
America.
“US Benefits has been offering its stored value programs to its
clients over the past few years through various vendors, but the potential size
and magnitude of the Prepaid International Network opportunity necessitated that
we partner with a best in class organization” said Robert Price, President of US
Benefits. “After an extensive review process, we selected eSpeedient, as they
provide us with a secure, flexible and scalable stored value management system
that is interfaced with a large, reputable Financial Institution further
instilling confidence in our offerings. We are looking forward to a long and
mutually beneficial relationship with them.”
Driven by the demand for
lower cost financial services for “non-traditional” clients, employers,
retailers and financial institutions are looking to these types of products and
easily accessible locations to meet the need. Paper paychecks are expensive to
print and distribute and can be expensive to cash through regular outlets. A
Prepaid/Payroll Card like WORLDCA$H can reduce the costs on both sides of the
process ultimately benefiting the recipient with considerable savings over time.
According to Robert Smithers, CEO of Prepaid International, “Convenience
stores and small inner city grocery stores share one common problem; the risk
associated with enabling financial transactions for the un-banked. With the
introduction of our new Point-of-Sale terminals we will allow merchants to
convert government and payroll checks to our WORLDCA$H Card with no risk and no
cash effectively changing hands. These cards will allow the un-banked to pay
their bills, conduct ATM/Debit transactions and potentially other ‘bank-like’
services thus turning the small inner city merchant into a mini banking center
for the un-banked in their community while creating an impressive revenue stream
for their store.”
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/4/prweb225766.htm