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The Western Union Company is planning to offer a Visa-branded reloadable prepaid card in a move by the Englewood, Colo.-based company to increase its presence in the prepaid market as more consumers move to cash transactions, Stewart Stockdale, executive vice president and president of Western Union's Americas region, tells ATM&Debit News, a CardLine sister publication. "Reloadable prepaid cards are a natural extension of our money transfer business," Stockdale says. "We see the card as a way to increase customer loyalty. We want to develop a broader relationship with the occasional user of our money-transfer services." With the Visa-branded reloadable prepaid card, Western Union hopes to catch a payments wave. Mercator Advisory Group says Visa is reporting slightly higher volume for its debit products, including prepaid, despite the economy. Mercator is based in Maynard, Mass. The Visa-branded prepaid card is the third prepaid card Western Union recently has offered to customers. The company also offers the MoneyWise prepaid card and Western Union prepaid card, which are sold in retail stores, Stockdale says. Both are Visa-branded cards. The Visa-branded reloadable prepaid card is an enhancement of Western Union's existing Gold card, which has 8 million cardholders nationwide, Stockdale says. The existing Gold card enables cardholders to send and receive money and earn rewards points, which cardholders can use to reduce money-transfer fees. Western Union will begin converting existing Gold cardholders to the enhanced Visa-branded prepaid card this month. Cardholders will be able to pay for purchases using the cards at retail stores and over the Internet. In addition, cardholders will be able to reload the cards at more than 50,000 Western Union reload locations in retail stores, Stockdale says. Western Union is currently testing the prepaid card at several locations. MetaBank of Storm Lake, Iowa, is the card's issuer.
