Disposable Cash/Gift Card
The FocusKard Cash Card/Gift Card is a pre-paid disposable payment card. Carrying a universally-accepted credit-card brand to ride the rails of the existing infrastructure, this card allows for anonymous and private payment transactions backed with the security of theft protection. No personal information is carried on the card or attached to its value in any way.
If the card is ever lost or stolen, the balance can be refunded or transferred to another card. The consumer can identify himself as the rightful owner by providing the Card Identification Number (CID) along with the card number.
Operating in a similar way to a private-label gift card, the FocusKard Cash Card will be a universally-accepted competitor in the gift card market, which had sales of 300 million cards in 2004/2005. The prepaid card market is expected to value $2.5 trillion in North American sales by 2010, with a Global potential of $5 trillion, according to MasterCard International, Visa International, and independent research estimates. Creative marketing, advertising, promotions and affinity relationships will drive the consumer to purchase the FocusKard because it offers the best value through universality.
The card is mass marketed and loaded through participating merchant outlets, as well as directly available from the card issuer. Once loaded, the card can be used like any other credit card or signature debit card until the funds are depleted. It can be used anywhere major credit cards are accepted.
The features of the FocusKard Cash Card/Gift Card make it ideal for use as a travel card, an expense card for children and students, or as a method for making safe and secure payments for online purchases.
There are benefits for participating merchants as well. Merchants may provide promotional “Envelopes” on cards for value added promotions. Consumer may spend the loaded value they purchased wherever they want, but promotional values added to cards must be used at participating merchant locations. Affinity Partner advertising adds visibility to the merchant brands. Affinity Partners are also given access to data gathered from card usage, such as purchase category trends, and geographical area of card use.
FocusKard protects itself from fraud by detection of suspicious loading of cards at merchant sites; by tracking cards and numbers from manufacture, to consumer load, to use, via a secure audit process; and by requiring strict guidelines for distributor and merchant handling of the cards. The cards have no monetary value until they are properly activated by the merchant.
FocusKard cash/gift cards are compliant with the requirements of the USA Patriot Act to prevent money laundering using the card.
