MasterCard, Travelex Launch Five-Currency Prepaid Card for U.S. Travelers (Aug. 14, 2013)
Aug. 14, 2013
Travelex has teamed up again with MasterCard and its subsidiary Access Prepaid for what the companies say is the first-ever multicurrency prepaid travel card specifically developed for U.S. travelers. The Multi-Currency Cash Passport Prepaid MasterCard, equipped for both magnetic-stripe and EMV chip transactions, enables customers to preload funds in five currencies simultaneously, including British pounds, euros, Canadian dollars, Australian dollars and Japanese yen, the companies announced this week. The new card is available at more than 200 U.S. Travelex locations and online, with the option to transfer funds from one currency to another, according to Travelex. A consumer promotion to win 1 million airline miles, touted online and via Facebook, accompanies the launch. Cash Passport, which was the first EMV-enabled travel card in the U.S., was a Paybefore Award winner in 2012.
The new U.S. prepaid travel card is the latest in a series from MasterCard’s partnership with Travelex, which includes similar Cash Passport-branded prepaid travel cards available in various currencies in a growing list of countries, most recently Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil, India, the U.K. and Japan. Similar cards are in the pipeline for rollout in at least five more countries during the next 12 months, David Koopman, Access Prepaid’s North America regional director, tells Paybefore. Cash Passport Prepaid Card users may go online to register their cards and check balances and transactions, and Travelex and MasterCard next year will unveil a mobile app supporting those functions, Koopman adds.
Prepaid travel cards are a hot product area this year, with Deutsche Bank India’s announcement of a Visa-branded prepaid card for travelers, and South African bank Absa and Virgin Australia also recently rolling out prepaid travel cards.
