RegaloCard LLC, a fledging mobile payments company, has signed agreements with several distributors of prepaid phone cards to place its card-based funds-transfer service in more than 100,000 retailers across the country.
The Miami company's service is designed to enable consumers to receive funds from the U.S. to use to pay for products and services as participating stores in Central America.
RegaloCard did not name the card distributors when it announced the deals Thursday. Its distribution network previously was scattered across the U.S., and consumers could purchase cards only at locations that also sell prepaid phone cards, such as convenience stores in New York, California and Nevada. The expanded distribution network makes its products available in all 50 states, especially in cities such as Chicago, Houston and Miami that have large immigrant populations.
Under RegaloCard's system, those who want to send funds to someone in Central America must purchase a merchant's prepaid card and scratch off an area on the back of it to reveal a PIN. The buyer then calls a toll-free number printed on the card and enters the PIN and the recipient's mobile number. The recipient receives an instant text message that contains a redemption PIN.
To complete a transaction, the cashier at a retailer in Central America enters the recipient's mobile-phone number into a dedicated terminal. The recipient then enters the redemption PIN to access the funds for the purchase. RegaloCard receives a percentage of the funds loaded into the card accounts from each participating retailer. Consumers pay no fees.
