Accor Services and MasterCard Europe create a new company, PrePay Solutions. The joint venture makes Accor Services the majority shareholder at 67%, while MasterCard Europe holds a 33% stake in the company.
The new company is designed to combine the prepaid and electronic payments expertise of both organisations for business players looking to benefit from the fast growing euro 130 billion European prepaid opportunity.
PrePay Solutions markets prepaid card-based applications that enable corporations, public sector and financial corporations to reduce costs and enhance efficiency. Both organizations and consumers benefit from the ease, security and convenience of card-based software in areas such as rewards and loyalty, gifting, expense management, and card payment for under banked people.
By offering turn-key programmes, PrePay Solutions provides customers the scale and resources to deliver a seamless prepaid tool including marketing support, transactions handling and customer support services. The flexibility of the MasterCard Worldwide Network to support prepaid services provides scalability options and speed to market in Europe.
The creation of PrePay Solutions is underpinned by Accor Services’ subsidiary PrePay Technologies – a UK market company in prepaid cards – and acquired in 2007 by Accor Services.
PrePay Technologies’ nine-year strong marketing and operating experience has already helped to bring more than 20 million cards covering a broad range of prepaid applications to the UK, and also includes a licence to issue e-money in 17 European countries.
PrePay Solutions will provide services to Accor Services and MasterCard, enabling each firm to develop software for its clients: corporate and government clients for Accor Services, banks and other financial institutions for MasterCard. At the same time, PrePay Solutions will market prepaid services direct to its own customers such as retailers.
The newly created PrePay Solutions builds on experience and will also draw on the combined expertise of Accor Services and MasterCard.
The PrePay Solutions Board of Directors is comprised of seven members: in addition to the Non-Executive Chairman and the Managing Director; Accor Services has three representatives on the board and MasterCard two members.
“Today’s announcement represents an important new step for our Services business,” says Gilles C. Pelisson, director and chief executive, Accor. “This unique agreement with MasterCard – one of the most widely known payment brands – will allow us to deliver value for our European customers.”
“This joint venture with Accor, a worldwide leader in the hospitality and services sector, enables us to provide our European customers seamless and fast-to-market solutions that give them the ability to tap into the burgeoning prepaid market opportunity,” says Robert W. Selander, president and chief executive officer, MasterCard Worldwide.
“This partnership is aligned with Accor Services’ strategic commitment to driving organic growth of 10 to 18% a year after 2010, versus 8 to 16% today. The strategic agreement positions Accor Services as a major player in the value-added prepaid market” says Serge Ragozin, chief executive, Accor Services.
“Customer financial institutions and merchant partners across Europe are looking for turnkey prepaid solutions, particularly those focusing primarily on the private label prepaid segment as well as innovative offerings to deliver the value that their customers have come to expect,” says Javier Perez, president, MasterCard Europe.
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