In this role, Francis will be operationally responsible for sales, account management, customer services, fraud and compliance. This will incorporate advancing the company's client services initiatives and spearheading the launch and management of Altair's prepaid card programs. Francis will also play an integral role in directing the analysis and reporting of consumer behavioural patterns to drive new business for Altair's existing clients.

"We are delighted that Sarah will be joining Altair. Her working experience in the payments industry, especially the prepaid market, will be of great benefit throughout Altair. Sarah's focus with Altair will be to ensure delivery of leading edge payment systems geared towards business solutions, working with local regulators, payment services providers, banks and card schemes," said Altair CEO, Lee Britton. "Her experience coupled with her passion and broad perspective of the payments industry, puts Sarah in a position to strengthen Altair's overall proposition to clients, suppliers and cardholders."

With over 10 years of experience in the E-Commerce industry, Francis has her finger on the payments pulse, and has worked with companies from start-up to global presence. In her previous role with Transsend as Market Development Director, her primary responsibilities included designing products and working with a number of supplier partners. This involved heading up the compilation of the e-money licence. Prior to this, Francis was Group Fraud Manager for Sportingbet, where her role required working with payment products to maximise customer relationships, whilst minimising fraud and risk.

According to Francis, "This is a very exciting career move for me, and I'm thrilled to work within such a dynamic and innovative company in the prepaid and processing space. Altair has delivered world-class programs for a number of impressive clients, such as MasterCard®, NorthgateArinso, The Independent and Caxton FX. I look forward to working with these, and the array of new brands soon to enter the prepaid card arena.

"I am particularly looking forward to working with companies that wish to utilise the services of Altair to deliver leading edge prepaid card programs. For program owners, managers and issuing banks, Altair presents a flexible 'pick and mix' platform to meet all requirements," concludes Francis.