This announcement changes the business’ public perception of InComm’s capabilities, they have always been known as a distributor and major processor for the gift card industry, but not in the General Purpose Reloadable (GPR) space. This exposes the strength of InComm’s money distribution system that is spread among retailers throughout the United States which will provide a robust reloading capability which is necessary for GPR program’s success.
This expansion follows the close of InComm’s deal to acquire distribution rights of American Express’s® prepaid reloadable and gift card products in the U.S., as well as the purchase of the Serve® technology platform. InComm has become the program manager and processor, and American Express will remain the issuer and network for all products involved in the transaction.
“The addition of the American Express suite of products strengthens the already extensive portfolio of prepaid cards and technologies that we provide to retailers and consumers,” said Brooks Smith, CEO of InComm. “In addition to bringing new distribution partners into our network, we look forward to welcoming 400 employees to our workforce nationally, more than 150 of whom will work in several of our Georgia offices. Some are transitioning from American Express and others are being hired by InComm as a result of the new business.
With InComm’s ability to fulfill many of the roles in the prepaid value chain, i.e., program manager, processor and reload network to name a few. It will be very interesting to watch how the market share moves among the GPR players. As always it is great to see the prepaid industry is driving employment growth.
Overview by Sue Brown, Director, Prepaid Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
Read the announcement here