Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Revolution Money Inc., which established a new payment network in 2007, recently expanded the reach of the MoneyExchange RevolutionCard. A PIN-based, interchange-free payment vehicle, the MoneyExchange RevolutionCard enables online, person-to-person payments to other cardholders, ATM access, and physical and online retail store purchases from a single account.
The RevolutionCard was launched in February 2008 under a processing agreement with Fifth Third Processing Solutions. (For more information, see "RevolutionCard, Fifth Third stir the processing pot," The Green Sheet, Feb. 25, 2008, issue 08:02:02.)
MoneyExchange RevolutionCard is part of the MoneyExchange network, an "online money transfer product that we introduced earlier this year, allowing consumers to send or receive money to or from another consumer directly and for free," said Duncan Evans, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the RevolutionCard Network.
"Now, account holders who sign up via our Web site can not only send money online at no cost, but with the MoneyExchange stored value RevolutionCard they can access the funds from their MoneyExchange account at over 300,000 merchant locations and 225,000 ATMs across the country."
A parent, for example, can go online and send money to a child at college without paying transaction fees. The student could then use that money to pay another accountholder online, perhaps a roommate for shared expenses, or use the MoneyExchange RevolutionCard to withdraw cash from an ATM or make a purchase at a retail store.
According to Evans, the RevolutionCard network is a new payment card brand that supports a variety of different payment card types, including credit cards or stored value cards. In addition to no interchange fees, the network costs merchants only 50 basis points – a 0.50 percent processing fee per transaction – to accept the RevolutionCard, and can reportedly save them up to 80 percent compared to other market brands.
Revolution Money is negotiating with several other acquirers and processors to expand its footprint. "We look to continue expanding our network and hope that at some point we can gain ubiquitous acceptance like the other payment card brands today," Evans said.
Matt McDowell, Vice President, Merchant Services at CardinalCommerce Corp., an online hosted payment application provider, said his company signed a processing agreement with Revolution Money this month that will allow online merchants – beginning in October 2008 – to accept RevolutionCard payments through its Cardinal Centinel Universal Merchant Platform.
"RevolutionCards can be accepted at brick-and-mortar locations as well as online, but we think the RevolutionCard is important for a couple of reasons," McDowell said. "First, the interchange rate basis points are extremely low, so it's very cost-effective for merchants. Two, we really like the fact that it's PIN-based, so there's a lot of safety and really no chance of chargebacks.
"And three, we think it's pretty neat that they [Revolution Money] give merchants the ability to co-issue the RevolutionCard."
But stored value is only one new type of RevolutionCard available. "We also offer the RevolutionCard credit card for prime, mid-prime and subprime consumers," Evans said. "Through our Web site we have instant card applications and instant credit decisioning. And the RevolutionCard credit card is accepted at all merchant locations that accept our PIN-based card."
Evans said his company works with existing payment infrastructures to enable merchants to accept the RevolutionCard seamlessly. "A number of our processing partners do work with ISOs and MLSs [merchant level salespeople] and have programs in which they can offer the RevolutionCard to their merchants. However, we really look to partner with the acquirers and the processors to enable that merchant acceptance."
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