New Prepaid Line Up Targets Unbanked Immigrants

November 6, 2010

Flint Telecom Group, Inc., an international telecommunications firm with offices in the U.S. and Ireland, is making a play to cash in on the unbanked market, purchasing both a prepaid card sales and a transaction processing company, andcollaborating on a scheme to distribute prepaid MasterCard debit cards through retail outlets in areas of the U.S. with high immigrant populations.

In an announcement earlier this week, Flint said it would be partnering with Alterna Card Services to make the plan work.

Alterna is a sales and marketing company that offers a line of financial services in Hispanic, Caribbean and unbanked markets. Alterna prepaid cards, in addition to being used at the point of sale, also can be used at ATMs, for online bill payments, and remittance services the company claims are priced well below big-name competitors. By adding Flint to the mix, Alterna can add perks like discounts on international phone calls using the cards.

"We expect the Alterna prepaid MasterCard debit cards to immediately address a market of over 12 million unbanked non-U.S. citizens, plus over 30 million unbanked U.S. citizens across the country," said Madeleine Tapia, Alterna's president.

Bernard A. Fried, president and COO of Flint. said the company sees great promise for the company, noting that its recent acquisitions "bring a whole new dimension to our existing operations and service portfolios" as both prepaid and mobile payments gain momentum.

Prepaid debit is a huge and growing market that integrate easily with international remittance programs.

Worldwide remittances totaled $318 billion in 2007, according to the World Bank.

The research and consultancy Mercator Advisory Group expects the U.S. market for prepaid cards to exceed $300 billion by 2012.

Worldwide, 3.5 billion people lack access to financial services. By 2012, 1.7 billion of these unbanked individuals are expected to have access to mobile phones.

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