Community Bank Products, a division of Tennessee-based FirstBank, supports network-branded prepaid card programs for more than 1,000 reseller community bank branches across the United States.

Now directly aligned with Metavante for prepaid card processing, Community Bank Products has full access to Metavante's prepaid development team - enhancing its speed to market for new prepaid program development and enhancements. Taking advantage of this aspect of its direct relationship with Metavante, Community Bank Products is preparing to roll out two new prepaid products next year: payroll cards and general purpose re-loadable cards. Both cards feature the Visa brand and complement the traditional Visa gift cards and Visa TravelMoney cards presently available from Community Bank Products. Pointing to the popularity of the gift and prepaid travel cards, Community Bank Products reports 30 percent year-over-year aggregate growth for the two products across its entire base of community bank resellers.

"Community Bank Products' conversion to Metavante prepaid is complete. A direct relationship with Metavante has improved the way we do business, and being able to charge ahead with new products in an evolving market like prepaid is a prime example of the improvement," said Barbara Hvasta, vice president and general manager, Community Bank Products. "Community Bank Products sprang from a community bank, FirstBank. We're experts in the community bank space. Community Bank Products is an alternative for community banks that don't want to partner upstream in order to offer their customers prepaid products."

"With Metavante, virtually nothing changed for Community Bank Products and its resellers. The cards already distributed are still valid. The reseller banks can continue selling existing cards. They use the same logon screens, the same IDs, the same basic procedures," said John Focht, division president, Metavante Issuing Solutions. "Minimizzing impact on the reseller banks supported by Community Bank Products - that's what Metavante's conversion expertise and relationship team delivered throughout the process."

As part of the agreement, Metavante will provide Community Bank Products with a variety of services including: prepaid card processing, card production and delivery, and account management on Metavante's prepaid platform. Additionally, Metavante will supply call center/automated voice response services, as well as fraud prevention solutions.