The companies' first collaboration is the National Restaurant Association's (NRA) Edge prepaid card program, which runs on the Discover® network.

The Edge card allows restaurant employees to deposit their paychecks, load funds, receive employer-sponsored incentives and earn cash rewards on a general purpose prepaid card. i2c's prepaid card payment processing platform will serve as the system of record for Edge accounts and enable the introduction of new card features such as card-linked offers and real-time mobile alerts.

"We are excited to partner with Heartland and i2c to provide this benefit to the nation's more than 13 million restaurant industry employees," said James Balda, senior vice president of Innovation and Business Development for the National Restaurant Association. "Today's restaurant employees are looking for better ways to manage their finances, and easily and affordably access their cash when and how they want it. i2c's platform helps us better serve restaurant workers that are not currently served by traditional financial services."

"By moving to i2c's platform, we'll be able to provide Edge cardholders with new features to help them better manage their money," said David Gilbert, president, Hospitality Group, at Heartland Payment Systems. "In addition, we'll be taking advantage of i2c's configurability and on-demand reporting capabilities to optimize and grow the program."

Amir Wain, chief executive officer at i2c, commented, "We're pleased to add Heartland to our rapidly growing list of partners and look forward to working with them on the NRA Edge program. Our relationship provides a tighter integration with the Heartland acquiring systems and allows us to deliver end-to-end innovation. We anticipate bringing additional prepaid card processing innovations to the program."