Ixaris, an innovator in global electronic payments, today launches Ixaris Payments Server, a cloud-based platform that enables banks to quickly and cost-effectively develop their own corporate prepaid programmes.
The comprehensive, out-of-the-box package allows banks to take a share of what is arguably the most lucrative segment of the prepaid card market, and to do so with minimal capital expenditure.
Corporate prepaid presents an enormous revenue opportunity for banks. Greater convenience and flexibility have contributed to the adoption of prepaid cards to address all sorts of business challenges across many different verticals. Visa estimates that €167bn will be spent over corporate prepaid in Europe alone with an annual growth rate of 27%[1], while MasterCard expects the global growth of prepaid at 22% CAGR with the corporate segment to account for $385bn of spend by 2017[2].
However, banks often lack the resources to develop corporate prepaid offerings in-house and as a result either choose to partner with corporate prepaid programme managers (who take a large bite out of profit margins) or end up losing market share to competitors and non-banks such as e-money issuers.
Ixaris Payments Server is a comprehensive out-of-the box package that allows banks to bring a profitable corporate prepaid programme to market quickly. Key features include:
• Ready-built apps: the platform comes with ready-built apps that have already been market tested with top corporate clients in a range of verticals
• Time-to-market: banks can bring a prepaid programme to market in weeks rather than months
• Minimal capital expenditure: Ixaris Payments Server is a PCI-compliant cloud-based service (platform-as-a-service) with low upfront costs, unlike traditional IT projects
• Configurability: the platform is comprehensively customisable to the needs of banks and their corporate clients
• Future proof: banks will be able to order bespoke apps or even license the Ixaris toolkit so that they can build their own in the future
Alex Mifsud, Founder and CEO of Ixaris, comments: "Ixaris Payments Server gives banks the tools they need to take a share of the growing corporate prepaid market. Challenger banks and smaller/regional banks recognise the opportunity of corporate prepaid but lack the financial and technical resources to develop an offering in-house. By adopting Ixaris Payments Server, these banks can access new sources of revenue, gain a competitive advantage over incumbent, win new more corporate customers and sell more to existing customers."
Alex Mifsud continued: "Some banks, on the other hand, already have corporate prepaid offerings handled by third-party programme managers. With Ixaris Payments server, these banks can increase profit margins and gain the ability to adapt or create new prepaid applications in the future."