Chase, MasterCard Look to Seed Loyalty with Kenyan Student Card (Feb. 19, 2013)
Feb. 19, 2013
Chase Bank (Kenya) and the University Students Community Organization (UNISCOO) have teamed up to launch a new MasterCard-branded prepaid card for Kenya’s college students. The UNISCOO card will enable students to shop in stores and online anywhere MasterCard is accepted and receive specially targeted discounts and promotional offers from merchants. Available at any of the more than 20 Chase Bank branches throughout Kenya and at UNISCOO’s Nairobi headquarters, the card can be loaded at any Chase branch, as well as through Kenya’s popular M-Pesa mobile money transfer service and airtel money. The card, which doubles as student ID, also can be used to withdraw cash from ATMs.
Kenya has a large and growing population of young adults, with 26 percent of the nation’s more than 41 million citizens between the ages of 15 and 29, according to MasterCard. And with the country’s university students likely to become steady wage earners in the coming years, instilling loyalty to Chase and MasterCard can pay off in the future, according to Peter Odhiambo, head of programs for UNISCOO. “If someone has been loyal for four years to a brand or institution, after they finish school, they will remain loyal customers and consumers,” he said.
The UNISCOO card continues MasterCard’s recent spate of activity in Africa, where the network has been attempting to tap into the continent’s rapidly developing economies and favorable demographics. In mid-January, MasterCard partnered with Kenya’s Equity Bank to issue a new line of debit and prepaid cards. That deal followed MasterCard’s mobile-linked prepaid offering under its Mobile Money Partnership Program, a GPR card in Botswana and a new prepaid loyalty program in Kenya from retailer Nakumatt set to reach more than 1 million of the merchant’s customers.
