The Bancorp, one of Europe’s fastest growing prepaid service providers has announced that it will soon offer open loop mobile prepaid cards that utilize host card emulation (HCE) to its growing European base after agreeing to a partnership with mobile payment provider MeaWallet.
Commenting on the partnership, Lars Sandtorv, MeaWallet CEO said,
“The partnership provides existing and new customers of The Bancorp the ability to add branded mobile wallets and cloud-based digital mobile prepaid cards to their portfolio of card products. The digital mobile payment cards use cloud-based security and HCE technology. The end users just tap their smartphone at the merchant NFC-enabled POS terminal to complete the payment. The service will work at all merchants that accept MasterCard PayPass and Visa payWave transactions.”
Prepaid in Europe largely remains a nascent market and is significantly behind debit and credit card use among consumers. However, prepaid is experiencing growth across Europe and there is a clear opportunity for prepaid and mobile wallet solutions to merge as consumers use their mobile devices for more banking and payment functions. As a result, this partnership should help both parties’ position new prepaid programs at the forefront of the next generation of prepaid products.
Overview by Tristan Hugo-Webb, Associate Director, Global Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
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