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digital money
Virtual
Reality
The rise of smartphones, m-wallets and online shopping could be a boon to
virtual incentives.
VieWpoint
With the growth of con- sumer mobile wallet solutions like Apple
Pay, Samsung Pay
and Android Pay over the past year, one of the questions many corpo- rate marketing departments are asking is: “Can virtual cards and mobile wallet solutions be used
for business-to-consumer (B2C) incentive payments (much like checks and physical prepaid cards are widely used today) and if so, what are the bene ts and chal- lenges? When it comes to B2C virtual payments, what is reality versus fantasy?”
The short answer is of course that virtual network branded prepaid cards have been used for rebates and corporate incentives for nearly 20 years, but the near ubiquity
of smartphones and the continued growth of online consumer spend in recent years mean that virtual
card solutions are more viable than ever and can o er unique bene ts as part of corporate marketing promotions in the here and now.
The very rst product at Citi Prepaid (then known as Ecount) was called Webcerti cate, and was introduced in the fall of 1997. As part of their consumer incentive promotions, companies could send a Visa or MasterCard virtual prepaid card, or Webcerti cate, and have it delivered with an electronic greeting card to anyone with an email address. The genius behind Webcerti cate was that it enabled the sender to deliver an electronic payment instantly to someone else without having to know the bank account details of the recipient. All you needed was an email address. We patented the underlying tech- nology, and it remains a key pillar of our platform.
By Brad Gar eld, Citi Prepaid Services
In Viewpoints, payments professionals share their perspectives on the industry. Paybefore’s goal is to present many points of view to o er readers new insights and information. The opinions expressed in Viewpoints are not necessarily those
of Paybefore.