HSBC Finance Corp. is planning to offer a co-branded debit card with the drugstore company CVS Corp. that will route payments across the automated clearing house system.
The ExtraCare Plus loyalty card can be linked to users' accounts at any bank. The companies are planning a six-month test, starting in August, when the cards will become available at CVS' 141 stores in Indianapolis. A national rollout could start next year. The card is the result of an agreement announced in March between HSBC, a unit of HSBC North America Holdings Inc. in Prospect Heights, Ill., and Tempo Payments Inc. in San Mateo, Calif. (formerly Debitman Card Inc.), which lets merchants offer their own debit cards that use the ACH network. HSBC agreed to offer Tempo cards under the brand name OptiPay; the CVS card announced Thursday is the first OptiPay product.
They are similar to ACH-based debit cards offered by Capital One Finance Corp., but those carry a MasterCard Inc. logo and can be used much more widely.
