PFS deal to provide Moneymailme users with prepaid cards
Users of Moneymailme will have the option of using physical and virtual prepaid cards to make purchases with the funds in their e-wallets. The new feature, announced June 28 at the Money 20/20 Europe conference, is the result of a partnership between the London-based social money transfer provider Moneymailme and Prepaid Financial Services, a U.K.-based payments technology provider.
Moneymailme, which facilitates micropayments, file sharing and chatting, is an app enabling users to send and receive money in more than 130 countries using their mobile phones. Moneymailme prepaid cards will have several currency e-wallets linked to them so when cardholders make a transaction, the money will be debited from the matching currency wallet instead of a typical base currency card. The cards will be available next month and users can order cards from the Moneymailme website, according to the company.
“The Moneymailme proposition will completely change the way social payments are made; the innovative approach and outstanding technology platform has enabled Moneymailme to lead the way,” said Lee Britton, PFS commercial director. “The launch of Moneymailme with PFS is an important step in enabling social payments to meet the needs and wants of customers globally.”
Social payments hold promise, problems
Payments through social media have a bright future, but they still have room to improve. Nearly half of 18-25-year-olds polled believe cash will be obsolete within 20 years, according to Moneymailme research, and an American Express study released in May found that Generation Z, consumers age 16 through 22, prefer interacting via online chat technology, such as WhatsApp.
The statistics bode well, not just for Moneymailme, but others in the payments arena. For example, Facebook Messenger platform updates announced last September enabled users to make payments using Messenger threads without having to leave the app. Furthermore, companies such as Western Union and MoneyGram have launched capabilities on Facebook Messenger that enable international P2P payments. And, WeChat, the China-based social messaging and mobile wallet platform is planning to expand its presence in the U.S. and Europe.
However, many payments providers use their own proprietary systems that don’t provide enough immediacy and “frictionless transaction flow that social network users expect in this medium,” according to a blog by Drew Sullivan, founder and president, PaymentExecutive.com.
“Payments providers still have a way to go to simplify the process and deliver the transparent experience that social network users expect,” he wrote. “But the industry has accepted that faster payments are here to stay and that is a good thing for businesses and consumers alike.”
