Prepaid Cards forecast to follow prepaid mobile phones in Lanka

David Parker, a leading global expert on Prepaid Payment Cards is visiting Sri Lanka on April 18 at the guest of MTI Worldwide, a leading Sri Lankan payments consultancy, to run a workshop for banks and has forecast that Prepaid Payment Cards in Sri Lanka will soon see explosive growth.

“Prepaid Cards are Visa/MasterCard cards that you load with money before you use them, just like prepaid phones. Everyone can get one, there are no restrictions around credit and thus they offer a great opportunity for financial inclusion as well as offering niche products such as those for the regular traveller” David said. “With over 70% of the Sri Lankan population having a mobile and over 80% of these being prepaid there is a clear opportunity in Sri Lanka as well as a strong understanding of the prepaid concept,” he said.

David went on saying “Sri Lanka is a unique developing market as it has a strong POS and ATM infrastructure and yet still an unbanked population of around 70%. The opportunity for Prepaid Cards to drive forward the financial inclusion agenda is huge. They can be used for many things from benefit payments to when combined with mobile enablement Person2Person payments”

Globally prepaid cards have proven to be the fastest growing type of cards payments and are forecast by Boston Consulting Group analysis 2010, commissioned by MasterCard to be worth in 2017 some US $146 million in the APMEA region alone. This represents a huge opportunity for the country’s banks in a new product area and one with little risk as funds are pre-loaded onto the cards. Prepaid cards also strongly support the government ambition of driving financial inclusion, something that globally has been shown to help drive GDP growth, lower financial transactions for the population and improve quality of life for people.