Prepaid card award winners celebrate in London
Paysafecard achieved the accolade of winning the main award at the Prepaid Awards in London this week.
The Prepaid Awards are unique in the card industry in allowing awards dinner attendees to choose the final winners, from a shortlist chosen by industry judges (including the Card World editor Annich McIntosh).
While there is some criticism that peer voting leads to favouritism and bias, it certainly lends a new dimension to the selection process.
Paysafecard, which has recently announced it has been chosen by Brussels Airport to provide customer internet booking through its prepaid voucher Cash-Ticket, operates in 22 countries with headquarters in Vienna and Lodnon. It claims to have issued more than 26 million prepaid cards so far, and has been profitable for the past three years. It claims to be the largest prepaid business in Europe.
Other winners
Sainsbury’s Student Meal Ticket was the winner of the Best Prepaid Gift Programme. Launched in 2008, this is targeted at students and their parents to ensure that students spend their money on food rather than entertainment.
PrePay Solutions: Debenhams Beauty Club Reward Card, was the winner in the Best Prepaid Non-gift Programme category. Launched in April 2009, this prepaid initiative leverages off Debenham’s existing gift card infrastructure to offer a reward card that can be used in the beauty department both for the collection and redemption of rewards. Debenhams claims that over two million cards have been generated in two months, with over 750,000 cards issued and over 300 million points loaded. Over 55% of Debenhams beauty customers are using the reward card when they shop in the Debenhams beauty department.
Travelex Cash Passport was the winner of the Best International Prepaid Programme. It provides a card alternative to travellers cheques, and is available in 10 currencies to customers in over 24 countries. Travelex has forecast that Cash Passport will out-sell Travellers Cheques ten to one by 2010.
Travelex Cash Passport was also the winner of the best corporate/government prepaid programme, because having developed cash passport for consumer markets, it went on to develop B2B applications, including an airline compensation product. The company explained that global airline compensation programmes can be complex, cumbersome and expensive to manage, and as a recent EU Directive stated that technical problems were no longer covered by ‘extraordinary circumstances’, airlines have since been liable for delays caused by mechanical issues.
By securing regulatory approval to use Corporate Cash Passport in 70 countries for airline compensation, Travelex says it has developed a single global proposition facilitating worldwide implementation for the airline sector.
Coinstar was the winner of the Best Prepaid Marketing award for its gift card programme. Coinstar claims it has seen a 422% increase in year-on-year sales due to its strategic marketing activity which has encompassed national press and in-store advertising, public relations, in-store promotions and incentives, internal communication and viral marketing.
The award for Innovation of the Year was won by InComm, for its Shell Driver’s Club gift card redemption scheme.
InComm claims this is Europe’s first integrated gift card mall and major loyalty programme, which has resulted in a 399% sales uplift for Shell, comparing pre and post launch of the prepaid card for its loyalty scheme.
The Shell Driver’s Club loyalty scheme rewards customers for fuelling at a Shell site. The prepaid card replaced the old paper vouchers used by the scheme. The prepaid cards can be used to make purchases in the Shell Gift Card shop.
Metavante (which is now part of Fidelity Information Systems – FIS) following the sale of the company on October 1 for US$3bn of Fidelity stock) was the winner of the Best Prepaid Service Provider. The company processes over 200 prepaid programmes, ranging from open loop MasterCard and Visa branded products through to private label and restricted loop cards. The list includes both virtual and contactless cards. Over the past 12 months, Metavante has helped clients enter new markets in mainland Europe from Romania to the Netherlands, and they process in every SEPA market.
InComm was voted by attendees to be Best Prepaid Product Distributor. InComm claims to be Europe’s largest gift card distributor, having a presence in over 4,000 Tier 1 retail outlets, through partnerships with 16 retail merchants, including Sainsbury’s where it was first to market in Europe with a gift card mall.
InComm specialises in tailored displays, ongoing store and technical support programmes, card management and financial settlement in pounds, euros US dollars and Swiss francs.
Branded Payment Solutions with Newcastle Building Society won the Best Prepaid Manager category.
BPS says its proprietary technology allows flexibility to develop programme features which drive sales volumes and deliver end user satisfaction. New features offered by the company include an online real time automated system to bulk load for B2B sales and one off promotions together with the technology to capture and leverage business intelligence.