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Todd Brockman Joins Galileo Processing, Inc. as President
Paybefore News - Special Bulletin
January 29, 2008
Galileo Processing, Inc., a leading provider of next generation financial payment processing solutions, today announced that Todd Brockman, formerly the top prepaid card executive at Visa, has joined the company as president and a member of the Galileo executive team. Brockman, one of the industry’s most visible advocates for prepaid, guided Visa’s prepaid business for the last seven years. As president of Galileo, he will be responsible for setting and driving company strategy, business planning, developing and managing strategic partnerships, and branding and managing business growth initiatives. According to the announcement, his international experience will be tapped as Galileo continues to expand aggressively into Canada and Europe. Clay Wilkes, Galileo’s founder, previously held the title of president and CEO. He remains CEO of the privately-held company, which is based in Salt Lake City, Utah. “Todd will be an incredible addition to Galileo’s team,” according to Wilkes. “I have had the pleasure of working closely with him during his tenure at Visa and think he is an outstanding individual with incredible credentials. His expertise and experience in the industry are unparalleled, and we are thrilled to have him join us.” Brockman is quoted in the announcement, saying, "Issuer processing has always been the most critical component of a successful prepaid program. I have always been impressed with Galileo's flexible platform, strategic approach to payment processing and executive team. I am thrilled to be part of this world-class processing company and look forward to building on Galileo's success."
Galileo Announces Prepaid Industry’s First Load Network Gateway Service
Galileo Processing is the First Processor to support both Visa® ReadyLink™
and MasterCard® rePower™ Load Networks
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah; February 22, 2007: Galileo Processing, Inc. (Galileo) today announced its load gateway strategy that enables industry participants to access over 100,000 retail locations through a single connection to Galileo’s gateway.
Galileo has established connectivity to over 100,000 retail locations across the U.S. by partnering with Western Union®, MoneyGram®, Visa ReadyLink, MasterCard rePower, and its proprietary network PayXone™.
Additionally, PayXone, a wholly owned subsidiary of Galileo, today announced it has completed its first load transaction at 7-Eleven Vcom kiosks. PayXone has also established connectivity to TIO Network Corporation, thus adding over 1,000 kiosks located at Circle-K, Exxon Mobile and several other top retailers.
Galileo, the processing gold sponsor at the upcoming Prepaid Card Expo (www.prepaidcardexpo.com) will be demonstrating its load gateway. Interested parties should visit the Galileo booth to learn more. Additionally, Galileo in connection with MasterCard and BankFirst will be giving away $10 MasterCard rePower promotional cards. The cards will be loaded at the MasterCard booth during the expo.
“Galileo is excited about the first load network gateway service.” said Clay Wilkes, CEO of Galileo Processing, “We have worked hard to provide issuers and program managers the most extensive retail loading network in the industry.”
About Galileo
Galileo Processing, Inc. is the most advanced processor for credit, debit, and prepaid card programs. The company offers multi-purse technology, a proprietary bill payment service, integrated ACD and IVR, world-class customer service, and real-time connectivity to over 100,000 retail locations that accept cash loads to prepaid cards. Galileo has been offering these processing and payment solutions for nearly six years. To learn more about Galileo please visit our website at www.galileoprocessing.com.
About Visa
Visa USA is the nation's leading payment brand and largest payment system, enabling banks to provide their consumers and business customers with a wide variety of payment alternatives tailored to meet their evolving needs. Visa USA is committed to increasing the choice, convenience, acceptance and security of Visa payments for all stakeholders in the payment system -- members, cardholders and merchants. Through its 13,369 member financial institutions, more than 510 million Visa-branded cards have been issued to cardholders in the United States.
Worldwide, cardholders in more than 150 countries carry more than 1 billion Visa-branded cards, accounting for more than $3 trillion in annual transaction volume. VisaNet, Visa's global processing system and the world's largest financial network, processes transactions with unparalleled reliability.
Visa offers a trusted, reliable and convenient way to access and mobilize financial resources -- anytime, anywhere, anyway. For more information about Visa Commercial Solutions, please visit www.visa.com/commercial.
About MasterCard Worldwide
MasterCard Worldwide advances global commerce by providing a critical economic link between financial institutions, businesses, cardholders and merchants worldwide. As a franchisor, processor and advisor, MasterCard develops and markets payment solutions, processes approximately 14 billion payments each year, and provides industry-leading analysis and consulting services to financial institution customers and merchants. Through its family of brands, including MasterCard®, Maestro® and Cirrus®, MasterCard Worldwide serves consumers and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories. For more information go to www.mastercardworldwide.com.
Galileo Processing to be Gold Processor Sponsor for 2007 Prepaid Card Expo
Leading Prepaid Card Processor Joins List of Leading Corporate and Media Sponsors for 2nd Annual Event Covering the Fast-Growing Network Branded Prepaid and Stored Value Card Industry.
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah; May 17, 2006: Galileo Processing, Inc., the leader in stored value and prepaid processing, today announced it will be a Gold Processor Sponsor of the 2007 Prepaid Card Expo to be held February 26-28, 2007 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Prepaid Card Expo is the only conference to be dedicated to the rapidly expanding network branded prepaid and stored value card industry and will feature four primary tracks covering different segments of the industry, including: Payments Industry Update; Unbanked, Underserved, and Payroll; Corporate and Consumer; and Government. The 2007 Prepaid Card Expo will be co-located with the 2007 CDHC Expo, providing extensive coverage of consumer-driven health care (CDHC), which represents a large vertical market opportunity for prepaid cards. All attendees to the 2007 Prepaid Card Expo will be able to attend the 2007 CDHC Expo sessions as part of one registration fee.
“The prepaid card industry has emerged as a significant segment of financial services,” said Clay Wilkes, CEO of Galileo Processing. “Our gold sponsorship of the Prepaid Card Expo is reflective of our success in this market and commitment to providing the leading enabling technology to power prepaid card products.”
“We are pleased to have Galileo Processing as a Gold Sponsor of the 2007 Prepaid Card Expo,” said Jonathan A. Weiner, president, Prepaid Media. “We have made some exciting changes and additions to this year’s Expo. This combined with the participation of Galileo and the rest of our industry leading sponsors and exhibitors will ensure the Prepaid Card Expo’s continued position as the premier conference and trade show for the network branded prepaid and stored value card industry.”
About Prepaid Media
Prepaid Media provides a host of business-to-business, integrated media and information services to numerous emerging industries. Areas of focus include the rapidly growing network branded prepaid and stored value card industry and consumer-driven health care (CDHC) industry. Prepaid Media’s properties include the Prepaid Card Expo™, CDHC Expo™, Prepaid Card Report™, Prepaid Card Buyers Guide™, and www.paybefore.com
As the various markets served by Prepaid Media continue to evolve, Prepaid Media serves as a trusted partner, providing relevant learning, buying and selling, and organized networking opportunities to key market participants.
For more information on Prepaid Media and the 2007 Prepaid Card Expo, visit http://www.prepaidcardexpo.com.
2005 10+1 to Watch
By Scott Cullen
Watch out! Another year has arrived and with it more companies to watch. As Intele-CardNews readers know, prepaid is a fast-moving industry. It’s also well positioned to reach new customers with financial as well as telecom services. This convergence has created opportunity for savvy operators; so many, in fact, this year’s list includes 11.
Who makes the list? Throughout the year, ICN editors take note of companies that are making business gains and who communicate their message effectively. Innovative services and products, strategic acquisitions, steady and methodical growth over time, attention to customer satisfaction and creative marketing approaches are a few of the other important criteria.
Selected companies are not necessarily newbies in the business. To the contrary, several are more than 10 years old. They’ve caught our attention because the are growing with the industry, and by virtue of their clout, their actions influence others.
We also hope in making this yearly (and difficult) selection that emerging companies will aspire to becoming a 10 to Watch company and join this impressive list.
Does it mean we’re always right? No, but we still believe it’s important to reward companies who not only are working hard, but are smart enough to bring the best quality products and services forward.
We’re also including a follow-up to our 2004 list of companies. Find out how they carried out their plans during the past year and how they’ve fared. We’re pleased to report that the majority are doing just fine. Congratulations to this year’s honorees.
It’s not easy being a next-gen processor in a world where legacy-based platforms still rule. But that’s not stopping Galileo Processing from making its mark as a processor for a broad range of transactions.
For the past five years, Galileo has been providing processing services for stored value, ATM, bill payment and prepaid debit card programs to a wide variety of issuing banks and program managers. These services encompass transaction card processing, identity verification, card management, web development, customer service, risk management and technical support.
While legacy-based systems have had a difficult time keeping pace with customer demands for enhanced functionality, David Wilkes, executive vice president of strategic alliances, says that Galileo’s next-generation platform enables it to respond immediately to exceed customer expectations and gives it an edge over the legacy-based competition in developing new and exciting account features.
Galileo’s platform offers specialized regard and incentive programs, integrated Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) and IVR and a proprietary bill payment service. The multiaccount capability of its platform supports payroll, personal spending, health care, wireless, retail, remittance, secondary cardholders, overdraft, reserve accounts and linking to existing in-house bank accounts.
As next-generation processors go, Wilkes believes that Galileo is at the head of the evolutionary curve. “We’re the preferred processor for several of the leading prepaid issuing banks.”
Asked what separates Galileo from the competition, Wilkes doesn’t hesitate. “We have the most robust, feature-rich account functionality and platform capability available.” For example, Galileo developed a program that combines wireless networks with the financial services of a stored value account. This functionality is available on several Visa card programs and enables customers to receive real-time account notifications.
“In stored value, there are a few fundamentals that must be addressed in order for a program to be successful,” Wilkes says. “One is the customer’s ability to load his or her account. We’ve built the most extensive load capability in the market. Customers can load their account through direct deposit or transfer money in a variety of ways from an existing bank, or they can load cast at over 50,000 retail locations, including such partners as Western Union.”
Wilkes sees a boom year ahead. “Consumers are just beginning to understand the reasons they should use stored value cards over a traditional debit or credit card,” he says.
Wilkes says to look for major announcements from Galileo regarding new partnerships. “We will also continue to evolve in the area of personal spending accounts and health care accounts,” Wilkes reports, noting that Galileo is looking to position itself as a leader in health services account processing – another reason to watch Galileo in 2005.
New transaction system changes marketing strategy.
When CashPass started up in 2001 as a retail provider of prepaid stored value products and services, not too many companies could handle the transaction processing. The first processor was focused on payroll. this involved a batch processing methodology, weekly or monthly reporting and no flexibility to change products or services. If a card was issued from a specific store, it could only be managed from that one store. Fees were assessed on specific days, and if there was no money in a user’s account, he didn’t pay.
As for flexibility, Galileo’s technology made such a drastic change that CashPass has changed its entire marketing strategy.
Last November, CashPass replaced its original transaction company with Galileo Processing Inc., whose stored value platform was designed with retail in mind. Now transactions are processed in real time, reports are available in real time, cards can be managed from a web interface, and fees are assessed on randomly selected days so users can’t avoid paying.
“Most prepaid MasterCard or Visa cards dont allow instant issue,” says Jason Martin, vice president of CashPass operations. But due to Galileo’s stored value transaction capabilities, CashPass was able to persuade MasterCard to instantly issue a prepaid branded card. The card is only good for 90 days, but it’s replaced by then with a permanent, name-embossed card, and the prepaid funds are automatically transferred. “The customer sees it as one card,” Martin says. Galileo also allowed CashPass to add prepaid calling card capabilities to its offering, enabling yet another change in marketing strategy.
Since signing with Galileo, Martin says CashPass has experienced a 25-percent increase in card sales, a 75-precent increase in load volumes, more than a 100-percent increase in collected fees and a doubling of revenues. “This is due not just to flexibility,” Martin says, “but also to the fact that we fit the market better.”
Source: Reprinted with permission of Intele-CardNews
Galileo for Prepaid Cards and Bill Payments
Privately held Galileo Processing not only offers the most comprehensive real-time platform issuers can use to market prepaid cards, it also leads its competitors in the most under appreciated asset for a successful stored-value program — a network of retail outlets where 50,000, will reach 150,000 by the end of the first quarter of 2004. Retailers charge cardholders from $1.00 to $6.00 for each reload. Cardholders linked to the Galileo platform can also use their prepaid bank card accounts to make bill payments using Galileo’s service called Click-N- Pay. Transactions can be initiated at a Web site or by making a telephone call. Four - thousand billers are linked to Galileo for end-to-end electronic payments via the ACH network. For other billers, Galileo manufactures a paper check.
Subprime card specialist BankFirst in South Dakota has been using Galileo since the fourth quarter of 2002. Two other issuers are signed. One Global Finance is 100% owned by Galileo’s principal shareholder, and is one of five marketers developing products to be processed on the platform. Two of One Global’s clients, MetroPCS and TracFone, are cellular phone service providers who market Wired Plastic MasterCard cards issued by BankFirst to their customers. To load their first prepaid funds onto their MasterCard card, these customers can pay by cash or money order at 50,000 retail outlets including all PayXone, MoneyGram and Western Union agent locations. MetroPCS customers receive text messages on their cell phones within 15 minutes confirming their payments and advising them that the money is available for spending at any Visa merchant. When they dial #222, they can move money from their Visa balance to pay their monthly cellular phone bill. TracFone uses the Galileo platform to link spending on the MasterCard card to rewards of free long-distance and cellular calls. Clay Wilkes is CEO at Galileo Processing, Inc. and One Global Finance in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Source: The Nilson Report, Oxand California
Issue Number 797, October 2003
www.nilsonreport.com
Firms Hope Users Of Prepaid Phones Like Prepaid Cards
Virtually all prepaid debit card providers supply a toll-free number on the back of their cards to call for balance and other information. Earlier this month, a regional provider of prepaid wireless telecommunications services began working with two Salt Lake City-based companies specializing in prepaid card services. Together, they are enabling consumers to use their phones to receive balance information through voice and text messaging and to pay bills.
Dallas-based MetroPCS Inc., which provides prepaid wireless service for the metropolitan areas of Atlanta, Miami, San Francisco and Sacramento, Calif., is offering prepaid, reloadable Wired Plastic cards to its 800,000 subscribers. Dave Wilkes, executive vice president of One Global Finance Inc., which manages and markets the Wired Plastic prepaid MasterCard, says he expects as much as 30% of the MetroPCS subscriber base to take the offer.
Wired Plastic cards are issued by BankFirst in Sioux Falls, S.D. Salt Lake City-based Galileo Processing Inc. is the card processor, supporting issuance, transaction authorizations, settlements, fraud, bill-payment and customer-service functions. Galileo also built the interface that provides the customer interaction between the phone and the stored-value card, says Clay Wilkes, Galileo president and CEO and Dave Wilkes’ brother.
By dialing #222, MetroPCS customers who obtain Wired Plastic cards can hear their available phone and card balances, pay their MetroPCS bills and add time to their Metro-Connect prepaid accounts using funds stored on their prepaid cards via a non-MasterCard funds transfer. Customers also receive text messages with daily balance alerts, card-load confirmations and other notices at no additional change.
Dave Wilkes says MetroPCS customers tend to be unbanked, underbanked and lack access to bank cards. Wired Plastic, he says, has functions and benefits that work well for that predominately cash-paying demographic, namely no annual fees, credit checks or income verifications.
“If we can validate your identity, we can issue you a card,” Dave Wilkes says. “It becomes a personal spending card to manage your financing.” Wired Plastic can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted.
Through relationships developed by One Global Finance, Wired Plastic cardholders can load funds onto their cards by visiting any of the 40,000 Western Union agent locations using Western Union’s SwiftPay service, or at over 10,000 other retail locations nationwide. They also now can load value at the same 650 indirect wireless dealers that supply MetroPCS service.
In terms of fees, Wired Plastic card-holders pay a one-time $29.95 activation fee, $15 of which MetroPCS rebates back to them. MetroPCS also provides customers a discounted card price of $4.95 per month, which covers the integration of their prepaid card with their wireless-service account.
The fee also enables cardholders to pay any biller electronically without further cost. Cardholders pay $1 if Galileo must send the biller a check. Cardholders who withdraw cash at an ATM pay a $2 fee to access the Cirrus ATM network, plus any surcharge imposed by the machine’s owner.
MetroPCS customers pay $35 per month for wireless service, plus $3 if they pay by cash, for unlimited, anytime calls with no contract. They also pay $3 per month for unlimited text messaging.
Enhanced Loyalty?
By obtaining a Wired Plastic card, MetroPCS customers can avoid paying the $3 cash-payment fee by using their card funds instead for free. “It provides a level of loyalty and ‘stickiness’ to their program that is not offered by other wireless providers,” Dave Wilkes says. “MetroPCS is the first to offer a fully integrated stored-value card in con-junction with their wireless service.”
One Global also works with other wireless providers, including Miami-based TracFone, a nationwide prepaid wireless company with some 2.5 million subscribers. TracFone customers who obtain a Wired Plastic card for a one-time$29.95 fee, plus $6.95 per month, earn one point for every dollar they spend with the card. Points earned can be used toward any TracFone product or service.
Industry observers say the number of reloading sites is a plus for Wired Plastic, though the signature-based cards do carry risk. Some overseas merchants do not seek transaction authorizations from issuers for transactions below $100 or $200, providing opportunities for crooks to rack up purchases in excess of the value on their cards.
“Such merchants are concentrated in certain categories,” says David W. Lott, a director at Atlanta-based Partners Consulting Group LLC. “But the people who take advantage know where they are.”
Source: ATM & Debit NEWS
Volume 4 Number 2 October 23, 2003
Reprinted with permission of Thomson Media
One State Street Plaza • 26th Fl. • New York, NY 10004 • (800) 367-3989
Prepaid Cards Get a New Target Market: Unbanked
By LaVonne Kuykendall
In the late 1990s a number of prepaid card products aimed at teenagers were introduced but failed to thrive.
Now some companies are targeting a different market for the cards: people without bank accounts.
In June a company introduced a prepaid general-purpose MasterCard that people can load with value at Western Union offices. Now, Western Union, a division of First Data Corp., says it may introduce a prepaid card of its own.
The card already on the market, called Wired Plastic, was developed by One Global Finance, a small company in Bountiful, Utah, and is issued by Transportation Alliance Bank Inc., an Ogden subsidiary of the diesel fuel distribution company Flying J Inc. It is marketed through bulk e-mailings and promotions to some prepaid wireless telephone customers.
“This card is marketed to a variety of demographics: the unbanked, those who don’t qualify for traditional secured credit card programs, and those who travel frequently for company reasons,” said David Wilkes, the executive vice president of strategic alliances at One Global Finance.
Ads for Wired Plastic prominently feature the Western Union Swiftpay logo and the fact that the card reports to major credit bureaus, presumably allowing its holders to begin to build a credit record.
But, in this case, building a credit record does not come cheap. After paying a $69.95 fee to obtain the card, users are charged $6.95 a month to maintain it, along with other fees to reload it and to get money from an ATM.
Mr. Wilkes says the card is still a good value when compared with secured and subprime credit cards. “Those cards can charge up to $300 in fees, and you pay interest, finance charges, and late payment fees on a credit card. This is a better alternative than a subprime unsecured.”
Telecommunications analysts point out that prepaid wireless services were very expensive when they first appeared on the market but got cheaper as they moved mainstream.
Some potential customers may find subprime cards more difficult to obtain now, said Clay Wilkes, the president of One Global Finance, and David Wilkes’ brother. Regulators “are cracking down [on subprime issuers], because they are predatory and their losses are going above 20%,” Clay Wilkes said. “It is putting subprime issuers out of business.”
David Wilkes said that Wired Plastic receives between 3,000 and 5,000 applications a day and generates nearly 10,000 daily transactions. It can be reloaded through Western Union’s Swiftpay service, which also allows prepaid telephone and wireless users to recharge their services by making cash payments at Western Union offices.
Other card issuers are marketing different kinds of prepaid cards — most notably payroll ones — to the unbanked. Gift cards, yet another form of prepaid product, have also made a splash.
It seems that the only prepaid cards that failed to gain traction were the ones targeted to teens, such as the Visa Pocket Card and the American Express Co.’s Cobalt. One of the largest remaining youth card marketers, Wildcard Systems Inc. of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., markets Visa Buxx cards issued by Bank of America Corp. and another product issued through Citigroup Inc., but a Wildcard executive estimated that it had fewer than a million cards in circulation.
Mr. Wilkes says customers will snap up Wired Plastic, even though previous attempts at stored-value cards failed. “Some focused on teen spending and have not developed as well as the industry thought it would.”
The card offers customers a way to get more mainstream banking products, he said.
“You can replace a checking account with this card,” Mr. Wilkes said. “A lot of people who use debit cards get into trouble with their banks” when they repeatedly overdraw their accounts. The prepaid card, which is authorized and settled in one step, is less prone to overdraft problems, he said.
Money deposited in Wired Plastic accounts is not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., according to company literature.
Wired Plastic appeals to the unbanked but will have a larger appeal among people who must sometimes travel for work, because it can be used to rent cars and to pay for hotel rooms, Mr. Wilkes said. He would not release sales figures but said the market is appealing enough to entice others, including Western Union, to launch competing products.
Western Union says it is considering offering a prepaid product of its own.
A Western Union spokeswoman confirmed that it is exploring a similar product. The company ordered one in the 1990s called Western Union Cash Pay, she said.
Telecommunications analysts said that prepaid general-purpose cards that can be loaded like telephone cards can be helpful products for recent immigrants who need to build a credit record.
“When you move to this country, it is difficult to get a credit card,” said Imka Mensah, a vice president with the Boston research firm Atlantic-ACM. “Unless you go to school here, you don’t get them.”
Another analyst predicted that general-purpose prepaid cards would follow the same adoption curve as prepaid wireless cards, which let people pay for telephone minutes in advance.
“These things get credibility when a lot of people start doing something with them,” said Tom Miezejeski, the director of research at Pelorus Group, a Raritan, N.J., company that tracks prepaid phone spending. “It is at that stage now. Everyone is beginning to zero in on the unbanked, credit-challenged, which is a huge segment of the economy. They want to address this marketplace.”
Source: American Banker
The Financial Services Daily
Friday, January 10, 2003