“It
is about safety. Sometimes people come out of an agent location with a bundle
of cash and we don’t want that”
President of Alliance
Group of Companies, Peter Chin, at the launch of the card at the Marriott
Courtyard Hotel in Kingston on Thursday May 4 2018
Jamaica,
get ready for an alternative to Debit Cards that your children can use!
It's
called an Alliance Prepaid MasterCard, which is basically a Prepaid Card and it’s
being launched by Alliance Payment Services Limited as reported in the article “Alliance
Launches First Non-Bank Card”, published Thursday
May 3, 2018 by Steven Jackson, The
Jamaica Gleaner.
The
launch event took place at the Marriott Courtyard Hotel in Kingston on Thursday
May 5th 2018. MasterCard was represented at the event by Uhreil Bedoya, the
country manager for Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Bermuda and Haiti.
With
this launch, Alliance Payment Services Limited becomes the first non-bank
operation in Jamaican to launch a prepaid card. Good to note that Alliance
Payment is an associated company of Alliance Financial Services Limited.
They
are an agent of MoneyGram with some over 50 sub-agents nationwide, making this
a product aimed squarely at the unbanked in Jamaica who receive their money via
remittances.
This
may also be their response to GraceKennedy and Western Union's plans to launch
their online website and app. This App, possibly using tech tools from
cryptocurrency Ripple, will allow customer to both send and receive remittances
directly to their Bank accounts as noted in my Geezam
blog article entitled “How
Western Union and GraceKennedy may use Ripple in GK MPay App”.
So
when will the product officially go live? Will this product enable e-commerce?
Alliance Prepaid
MasterCard - Electronic Transactions for Children and potential e-commerce
Payment platform
A
Prepaid Card is basically similar to ScotiaBank's VISA Debit card, which can be
used to purchase items online as noted in my Geezam
blog
article entitled “How
to use Scotia VISA Debit Card Online”.
Alliance
Prepaid MasterCard, which was two (2) years in the making, will be officially
available on Friday, May 11th 2018 at Alliance’s head office in New
Kingston or its agents islandwide. They’ve long had Prepaid Cards in the form of
Alliance Payment Services Limited’s ePay Card.
I’d
long predicted that ePay would beat out Mobile money as Jamaicans are already
used to Debit Cards and inter-ePay transfers would make it popular as noted in my
blog article
entitled “Alliance
Financial Services Limited's ePay will beat Scotiabank and NCB's in Mobile
Money Revolution”.
MICO University is currently one of their
biggest clients and are using their ePay platform to go cashless on campus as
reported in my blog
article entitled “How
MICO University College use of ePay is Mobile Money for Miconians as Cross
Roads goes Cashless”.
Not
only will customer be able to receive their remittance via the card and
withdraw via ATM, but relatives abroad will also be able to send money to the
card via an Android App.
Because
it can be topped up, this could be a convenient option for parents wanting to
give their under-aged children a limited amount of money to spend locally as
well as online!!! Getting the card is free, but there are usage fees that may
be a bit daunting:
1. JA$40
per withdrawal
2. JA$10
at point of sale outlets
Still,
Prepaid Cards will now be a part of the mix of options to get more of Jamaica's
unbanked to use more Electronic Transactions. This mix already includes
GraceKennedy GK MPay and Quisk, now that JCCUL 's Quisk is not out of the
picture as noted in my Geezam
blog
article entitled “JCCUL
Shutters CONEC Mobile Wallet, leaving Quisk and MPay in the Race”.
Eventually
more services will be coming to make Electronic Transactions available to all,
as pointed out by Minister of Finance, Dr Nigel Clarke, quote: “Of great
significance is the fact that the guidelines provide collaboration with
existing service providers to bring innovative payment solutions to the
market......The service providers are directly relevant to the daily business
of Jamaicans. Depending on the providers the services include bill payment,
person to person benefits, e-cards, point of sale machines, accounting
enquiries, remittance disbursement and others”.
The
benefits to the Government is that it reduces the cost of doing business and
making taxation universal as predicted in my blog
article entitled “How
Electronic Transactions in Jamaica can eliminate Hidden Economy via Universal
Consumption Taxation”.
I
am very interested to see if this Alliance Prepaid MasterCard can be integrated
into websites and used for e-commerce i.e. buying and selling items online. If
so, remittances may not be the only use that this card has and it popular will
skyrocket, as it would provide a practical way for Web entrepreneurs to set up
e-commerce websites.
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