We recently kicked off our countdown of the 42 benefits of prepaid cards that you might not have known. To recap, we focused on benefits 42 through to 30 that show how and why prepaid cards are widely preferred by consumers when received as a gift, reward, or incentive.
This week, we're turning our attention to how prepaid cards provide an easy, secure and cost-effective payment option to organizations in both the public and private sectors.
Printing and mailing paper cheques drive up costs due to loss, fraud, and mailing delays. So it's not surprising that recent research from the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) finds that many of its member organizations will convert the majority of their payments to electronic within the next three years.
Prepaid cards are now helping to usher in this new era of electronic business payments. Here's how some of our innovative customers are using prepaid cards to replace cheques as a cost-effective method of disbursing payments and more. Hopefully we'll give you some ideas on how prepaid cards can improve your business model.
Now back to the countdown.
29. Simplify many compensation needs: General purpose reloadable prepaid cards are the fastest way to make ongoing, regular payments since reloading them doesn't require access to physical financial institutions for funds.
28. Efficiently disburse benefits: Administrators can manage and measure funds 24/7 in a secure environment using our online portal solution.
27. Help the unbanked: Prepaid cards are used by governments for disbursing benefits to people who don't have access to bank accounts, and who may be taken advantaged by predatory loan shops. Even tax refunds can be loaded instantly with no customer credit or bank history required.
26. Emergency relief payments: Claimants with a government-issued prepaid card can receive benefits directly onto their card for immediate use.
25. Less paperwork, more visibility: Prepaid cards make travel and expense claims easier with less paperwork, while providing more visibility into purchase activity.
24. Elevate your brand: Prepaid cards can be customized to include your corporate logo and branding to create a unique awareness among the cardholders.
23. Grow customer loyalty: Co-branding cards help businesses strengthen retention and loyalty through promotions, cross-selling opportunities, frequent buyer programs, rebates, and other kinds of incentives.
22. Increase customer acquisition: Co-branded prepaid cards fuel spending and attract new members to businesses.
21. Boost customer engagement: By integrating prepaid cards into promotional programs, you can cost-effectively incent and motivate customer behavior, like participation in surveys or events.
20. Drive foot traffic: Prepaid cards have been proven to increase foot traffic and sales via card rebates from purchases, and promote important sales opportunities such as test drives at car dealerships.
Prepaid cards beat out cash by a landslide as a consumer reward and incentive of choice. They also help organizations to cut costs by simplifying processes and cutting down paper work, and more. As a result, organizations are relying on prepaid cards to effectively drive marketing promotions and rebates, employee reward and sales channel programs, and compensation and disbursement solutions.
Next week, we'll look at the next 10 benefits of prepaid cards and focus on innovative applications in different industries - from telecom to education to life sciences.
