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Diebold Inc. is seeking bank partners to test dispensing Visa-branded prepaid cards through its Opteva ATM to capture revenue from surging prepaid card sales, Kenneth C. Justice, the ATM maker's vice president of global marketing and portfolio management, tells ATM&Debit News, a CardLine sister publication. Diebold is talking with an undisclosed number of banks and hopes to begin tests in the first quarter of 2010, he says. Opteva ATMs have five cassettes to hold banknotes, but one of them can hold about 2,000 blank, inactive cards, Justice says. Consumers using the ATMs to buy and activate prepaid cards would fund the card account with cash or funds transferred from a bank account, Justice says. "Banks already are sold on prepaid cards because they issue them through the teller window," he says. "The ATM would enable card sales 24/7." Initially, prepaid cards sold through the ATMs would not be reloadable, but that service eventually could be added, Justice says. The cards also would be unembossed. Diebold, which is based in North Canton, Ohio, is world's third-largest manufacturer of ATMs based on annual shipments.
