IMGCAP(1)]
Alliance & Leicester PLC plans to close its prepaid card unit after a review conducted by its new owner, Spain-based Banco Santander, S.A., determined that the business was not central to its United Kingdom strategy, a spokesperson for UK-based Alliance & Leicester tells ATM&Debit News, a CardLine Global sister publication. Alliance & Leicester has not set a date to close the prepaid operation, which employs 36 workers at the unit's headquarters in Liverpool, the spokesperson says. "We are talking with customers to determine a date that is amenable to them," says the spokesperson, who declines to disclose the number of Alliance & Leicester prepaid card customers. Published reports, however, claim Alliance & Leicester is one of the UK's largest prepaid card issuers. The bank sells Visa-branded prepaid cards to travel agencies, housing associations and professional business agencies. They, in turn, sell the cards, which are denominated in dollars, pounds and euros, to individual consumers, the spokesperson says. Alliance & Leicester executives are negotiating with unions that represent prepaid card employees. Some will remain with the unit to assure a smooth transition. The bank will reassign some to other bank operations, and some workers likely will leave the bank, the spokesperson says. In October, Banco Santander bought Alliance & Leicester for 1.3 billion euros (US$1.7 billion euros).
