Prepaid card offers travel solution

Aug 20 2008 by Alex Turner, Liverpool Daily Post

PREPAID card provider Indigo Solutions has launched a travel card which offers to make taking money abroad much easier.

The St Helens-based firm is led by Claire Bayliss, who has headed the marketing operations of Matalan and Alliance and Leicester Commercial Bank.

She researched the travel card competition by packing six different cards on a trip to Spain in May.

“None of them made it easy,” she said.

“I came back and we developed a very customer-centric product that is easy for customers to use.”

She believes the Indigo Travelcard, which is a Visa debit card with no application or monthly fees, offers travellers something new because of its use of SMS and web functionality.

“The Indigo Travelcard is going to deliver a step change in the world of prepaid travel cards,” she said.

It offers statements and reloads can be done online while top-ups and balance enquiries can also be done on the mobile phone. The target market for the travel card varies from parents whose teenagers are backpacking or studying abroad, to families and singles on annual holiday and business travellers, says Bayliss.

The Travelcard is supported by Alliance & Leicester, which issues the cards and processes the transactions.

The company is planning to expand to other pre-paid services and is also working on several corporate pre-paid programs.