Can you give our readers a summary of what TransCard is and its role within the payments industry?
TransCard is a fintech company that specializes in providing innovative cloud-based payment solutions to financial institutions and corporations. Supporting more than 250 issuing banks and more than 1,500 corporate clients across the U.S., our SaaS funds disbursement and management platform has evolved from traditional prepaid products to a self-service platform, providing payees options as to how and when they want to receive their money. We operate as both a program manager and issuing processor, decreasing regulatory, time and cost burdens for organizations and individuals and minimizing touch-points to deliver solutions into the marketplace.
What sets TransCard apart from other issuers and processors in the market?
Our technology clearly sets us apart from others in the marketplace, whether comparing us to competing processors or program managers. It is a substantial investment to build and run an issuing platform. Our platform was built from the ground up with flexibility and customized delivery in mind, which allows us to provide solutions addressing specific needs in various industry segments.
How do you see the payments industry evolving within the next 5 years?
Much of the innovation in payments happens outside the traditional banking channels. Fintech investment is at an all-time high and most of that has been in backing disruptive technologies on the edge of the banking system. As clear solution winners sort themselves out, banks have no choice but to re-engage in this evolution and become more dominant in providing solutions to the marketplace. TransCard sits between both the traditional banking channels and disruptive technologies and is poised to help bridge this gap over the coming years.
What is TransCard doing to stay ahead of the evolution?
TransCard just introduced a major upgrade to its platform in January 2016 called Paynuver. Paynuver eases the disbursement of funds by allowing a payer to create a virtual payment account on behalf of multiple recipients. Once a payer puts money into a payment account, their work is done from both a distribution standpoint and a regulatory standpoint. The technology takes care of the rest. The platform then provides a self-service experience to the payee making them responsible for choosing how they want to receive their money. In additional to money movement, the platform also supports workflow rules, attaching documents directly to payments and electronically endorsing payments.
What are you most excited about seeing come to fruition within the payments industry?
The elimination of checks. So many businesses and organizations are facing unnecessary cost pressures due to using paper-based payments. Alarmingly, checks are still the most common payment method used by corporations for disbursements, accounting for 55 million disbursement transactions valued at $1.8trillion in 2014 alone. TransCard currently allows for this payee preference, but ultimately many organizations would be better off without checks. We are helping smooth that transition in a way that allows recipient preferences and innovation to co-exist.
