Mexican soccer team Club America and Miami-based Denarii Systems LLC, a payment program provider that caters to unbanked consumers, have launched a prepaid MasterCard designed for Hispanics in the United States, the companies announced Jan. 4.
Consumers may use the reloadable card to make purchases, ATM withdrawals, or pay bills electronically. Cardholders also may send remittances via text messages from their mobile phones, through a dedicated website or by calling a toll-free number. The companies, however, would not say specifically how that process would work.
Storm Lake, Iowa-based MetaBank issues the card. The companies would not say who processes the card transactions.
Cardholders may reload funds into their card accounts through a bank transfer from their checking or savings account, if they have one. They also can enroll in direct deposit to have their payroll or government checks sent electronically to their Club América Prepaid Card account. Or they may reload their card account with cash using a Green Dot MoneyPak, available at select retailers nationwide, including Walmart, Walgreens, RiteAid, Kmart and CVS Pharmacy, according to Denarii Systems.
Cardholders pay $1 to add funds to their card account using direct deposit. Retailers may charge up to $4.95 for a Green Dot MoneyPak or cash reload. Cardholders also pay a $1.75 service fee for each domestic cash withdrawal and $2 plus 2% of the amount for each cash withdrawal outside the U.S. Remittances cost $4.95.
The companies are marketing the card to Hispanics who typically do not have credit cards or banking accounts, according to a press release. “We want our fans [in the U.S.] to know they can count on us to make secure purchases and remit funds to their loved ones,” Michael Bauer, Club America president, said in the release. Club America has 20 million fans in Mexico and 5 million in the United States.
The companies declined to provide details on how they are marketing the card.
Fans in the U.S. may apply for the prepaid card from the club’s website. The card will be made available to fans in Mexico in the second quarter of 2011.
The Club America prepaid card represents one of MasterCard Worldwide’s efforts to provide financial services to the unbanked or underbanked Hispanic population in the United States, Alex Lui, the card brand’s vice president of global prepaid card development, tells PaymentsSource.
Since 2009, MasterCard has engineered community financial-education programs to cater to the Hispanic communities in the U.S. to not only introduce them to money-management strategies but also to encourage them to use financial products such as prepaid cards so they can make transactions and pay bills electronically with the same ease as the general U.S. population, says Lui.
Teaming with partners that the Hispanic community trusts, such as media giant Univision and the Club America organization, is an important element in targeting this group to provide financial services, he says.
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