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By Adam Saytanides
White Eagle (Europe) Plc, a London-based supplier of prepaid products and services in the United Kingdom, launched a new division last month called Eagle Prepaid to manage third-party prepaid cards.
The company hired David Carr, formerly head of new business with London-based Altair Financial Services International Plc, a global provider of prepaid cards, to lead White Eagle's new venture. While at Altair, Carr helped develop a foreign exchange and travel card for international supermarket giant Tesco Plc, which is based in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, England.
White Eagle (Europe) started two years ago with the goal of becoming the dominant prepaid card provider in Europe. The company offers a Maestro-branded prepaid card that international workers can use to receive wages, pay bills and buy mobile-phone minutes.
The card won a prize for marketing and distribution at the MasterCard Europe Prepaid Awards in Cannes, France, in May.
The remittance card for international workers cost so much to develop that Eagle launched the new division to maximize return on investment, Carr tells Prepaid Trends.
"White Eagle looked at multiple program managers and couldn't find the right person for the job" when creating its migrant card, Carr says. "So, they built everything in-house, and now we have the technology and functionality to be a program manager."
Eagle rolled oout the migrant worker card to compete with Western Union Co. and MoneyGram International Inc., Carr says. The card enables Eastern European workers to send funds home from the UK with lower fees and surcharges than established funds-transfer options, according to Carr.
The company learned so much by developing the migrant card from scratch and investing such a "huge amount of money in the technology that we now have the backbone in place to launch other people's programs," Carr says, adding the platform White Eagle assembled to launch its foreign worker card is too big for one program.
David Parker, a consultant for London-based Pepper Corp., described White Eagle's launch of the migrant card as impressive. The company "approached their particular markets very professionally and, in effect, created a payroll card for migrant workers by targeting agencies in the home market–Poland, Bulgaria, etc.," Parker tells Prepaid Trends. They provided "a range of services, including telecom, for a new migrant arriving in the UK."
Parker says no other company has put together a full program in which prepaid is just a part of an overall product.
Carr says Eagle Prepaid will stand out in the European market because "we're completely agnostic....We can pick and choose the right product partner for each client." Most competitors, Carr adds, "are tied into one processor, one bank, one card production house... [this] gives us an edge over the competition."
Eagle Prepaid's works with MasterCard Worldwide, Verizon Wireless and Barclays Plc. Carr says Eagle's most important partner is Metavante Technologies Inc., a Milwaukee-based company that serves as Eagle's main payment processor. Metavante purchased the London-based processor Nomad Payments Ltd. in January.
Parker agrees that Eagle Prepaid probably has more relationships with other companies than its competitors have, but European prepaid providers are evolving by adding strategic relationships. He cites Quantum Loyalty Systems Inc., which specializes in made-to-order customer rewards cards. Quantum, with is based in Incline Village, Nevada, has two processors, two banks and two card manufacturers from which to choose, Parker says.
Eagle Prepaid will offer purely open-loop card services, including travel and foreign-exchange cards, government-benefit cards, student and youth-allowance cards, insurance cards, and gift cards.
Carr once worked for Scottsdale, Arizona-based Opticard Payment Services Inc., a company that manages gift card and customer-loyalty programs.
He calls closed loop a "tough slog" for program providers. Most retailers prefer to "do their own work in-house," he says.
