MasterCard Introduces MasterCard rePower

MasterCard rePower opens up a new acceptance opportunity for MasterCards customers and provides value-added services for prepaid service providers, including wireless carriers, while helping to reduce prepaid reload costs. Initially, MasterCard rePower will enable cardholders to reload their prepaid mobile phone accounts. In the future, MasterCard plans to expand MasterCard rePower to enable the replenishment of gift cards, prepaid MasterCard cards, and stored value accounts such as transit and tolls. In the U.S., Chase will be the first bank offering MasterCard rePower to their cardholders who purchase prepaid airtime for their Cingular phones. Additional issuers and network operators will be added to the service in the coming months. In South Africa, MasterCard rePower is enabling South African consumers and merchants to use their debit or credit to purchase prepaid airtime from the regions three major providers of cell phone service for a variety of uses, such as prepaid mobile phones and payphones. MasterCard rePower Value Proposition This new payment solution benefits all partners involved in a prepaid payment transaction including issuing and acquiring financial institutions, merchants (wireless carriers) and cardholders. Benefits for financial institutions: -- Provides cardholders new opportunities to use their payment cards instead of cash, and consequently drives issuer and acquirer Gross Dollar Volume -- Increases customer loyalty and retention -- Requires minimal implementation effort for issuers and no acquirer infrastructure development Benefits for wireless carriers: -- Significantly reduces the overhead costs of cash handling, distribution costs of current airtime sales methods and scratch card and voucher fraud -- Minimizes the effort involved in prepaid reloads, increasing overall user satisfaction -- Creates opportunity for greater sales volumes, higher tickets and increased revenue as purchases are not limited to cash on hand or to scratch card and voucher availability -- Direct issuer marketing to cardholders raises overall awareness of MasterCard rePower and participating wireless carriers Benefits for cardholders: -- Provides cardholders with increased flexibility allowing them to use their existing debit or credit cards to reload prepaid accounts, anytime and anywhere. Cardholders can choose from up to five options for reloads: -- Phone (dialing a toll free Interactive Voice Response (IVR) number) -- Mobile text messaging or SMS -- Internet -- Scheduled automatic reload or recurring payment on a weekly or monthly basis -- E-mail -- Provides cardholders with better financial control with individualized spending limits and the ability to monitor usage with transaction history available on the MasterCard rePower website How MasterCard rePower Works Cardholders register for the service by phone or the Internet. Using the MasterCard rePower website at www.mastercardrepower.com, cardholders register with their participating financial institution in the U.S. or their wireless carrier in South Africa. Cardholders provide their contact and payment information, their mobile phone number(s) and then select a rePower code or password for future authentication. Once registered, a cardholder need not provide detailed payment information again to use the service. Payment details are stored in a secure, password-protected account for them to access whenever theyd like to replenish their prepaid accounts using their registered debit or credit card.