Alliance Financial Services says it will fully automate its ePay card to allow customers to load their remittances automatically without going into its offices or calling its agents.
The move should spur more activity on the card, which is already seeing a rise in transactions, Alliance said.
The company started offering the card in conjunction with Mastercard and MoneyGram in 2017. This after building out its own card network in 2014.
Initially, customers had to go into Alliance’s office to load the card with remittances, but since March of this year, they have been able to download the app and call in or text their confirmation details, and by the end of the day, the remittances would be loaded on the card. The next step, according to Alliance Vice President Robert Chin, is full automation.
“We will launch into direct card services, which means we can put remittances directly on the card,” he said. Asked for the timeline for this direct deposit, he stressed it would be “soon”.
The Alliance ePay Mastercard is a multifunctional prepaid card solution that can not only be used for shopping and other payments, but also money transfers.
“Remittances are up since the pandemic and that’s where we see the opportunity right now. We want to leverage our platform and I think we will make some significant changes in the market,” Chin said.
After an initial decline at the onset of the pandemic, remittances to Jamaica have been recovering. In July, for example, net transfers rose 44 per cent to US$275 million, according to central bank data.
On October 1, Alliance acquired the card services portfolio of ePay, having previously switched over its licence on approval from the Bank of Jamaica, BOJ, in June.
“Nothing changed,” said Chin in relation to whether the transaction had any impact on the structure of the operation.
“So, we transferred the Mastercard licence into an Alliance Financial Services licence. Nothing in the backend has changed. Just that Mastercard had to approve it, and so too BOJ,” he said.
The ePay Mastercard has done $125 million in remittance transfers since March, which Alliance said surpassed projections.
“Alliance will continue to do our part to innovate for the betterment of all customer categories. We already have a few major partnerships linked to the card in the pipeline, which we will announce in due time,” Chin said.
