News from Nitecrest Ltd.

Mastercard Accreditaton

Mastercard and VISAIn the wake of our newly acquired Mastercard accredited status, Nitecrest are proud to announce the successful completion and supply of our first branded Mastercard Prepaid Debit Card securely packaged product.

Mastercard Gift Cards From NitecrestThis unique innovation was developed and manufactured in-house and has proven big success in providing a secure package, enabling Mastercard branded products to be featured at Point of Sale in many stores throughout the UK. PrepayTec Ltd’s 360 Money product is the first Prepaid Mastercard to be rolled-out in the UK to such a large scale, featuring in numerous retailers, such as Somerfield, WHSmith, Clinton Cards, Nisa & Sainsbury’s stores.

This bespoke secure solution is available in many shapes and sizes and can be adapted to any pre-determined dimension, enabling us to conform to any existing Giftcard centre or point of sale display.

360 Money Mastercard Packs

Nitecrest are proud to announce the successful completion of the 360 Money Mastercard branded Gift card pack for Coinstar and Prepay Technologies. The project was completed at the Nitecrest factory in time for the Christmas shopping season during 2009 and is featured in many high-street retailers throughout the UK, including Clintons Cards, WH Smiths, Somerfield and Sainsbury’s.

The secure packaging required to enable this product to be featured at the point of sale, was developed inhouse at Nitecrest and makes use of our vast range of bespoke finishing machinery.

Nitecrest currently have the capacity to produce a large volume of these packs per day and we are looking to increase our capacity for this product as demand increases by adding another new attaching line.

Money Transfer & Prepaid Gift ‘Top-Up’Cards

Using the existing ‘MidGift’ hanging card model, Nitecrest have just completed our first money transfer card for general use in many UK retailers. This phenomenal project enables multiple users to have access to the same prepaid account by issuing one or more cards for redemption and disposable cards for top-up, allowing consumers to add funds to a specific account remotely.

This application is proving incredibly popular with migrant workers and students living away from home. UK based migrant workers from all over the World are now able to purchase a card, which they can send to a family member, ensuring monies are transferred internationally with ease.

The same system enables parents to provide regular funds for children that may be attending university or living away from home for the first time, ensuring peace of mind for the parent, as well as the ability to monitor their child’s spending remotely. Top-Up cards are available from most UK retailers, facilitating remote reloading of a specific person’s pre-paid account.

Nitecrest have large expectations for the Prepaid Debit card market and have subsequently invested heavily in new machinery to cope with large capacity production as the demand for such services grows. We now have the capacity to match, attach and personalise over 500,000 secure carriers each week, assisted by the continued development of our own machines, which are built to our detailed specifications and supplied exclusively to Nitecrest.

EMV Smart Card Issuing / Fraud Prevention

Smart cards are revolutionising banking with better security and scope for multiple additional applications beyond simple debit or credit card functionality. Early adopters are not only reducing fraud but generating entirely new revenues and differentiation. EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) is the global standard that is helping ensure smart cards, terminals and other systems can interoperate.

MasterCard Specification
MasterCard has a set of specifications describing their product which they call Debit and Credit on Chip. These are functionally equivalent to the VISA VIS specification although there are slight variations.
MasterCard plan to implement Debit and Credit on Chip on the Multos open card platform.

The MasterCard electronic cash product is the Mondex Purse. This can co-reside on the same Multos card as Debit and Credit on Chip.

Our Views on the Market

How Buoyant is the current UK Gift Card market?

It is reported that 29% of people in the UK purchased a Gift card in 2009 and nearly half the UK population received a Gift card at some point.

***DATA BASED ON A STUDY CONDUCTED IN OCTOBER 2009 SPONSORED BY THE VA

These figures are still quite low relative to North American markets who have reported a contrasting 76.6% rate of purchase in the US and a 56.8% level of purchase in Canada.

Predictions for 2010
The UK Gift card market will undoubtedly experience yet another substantial incline in both sales revenue and card volumes.

Why?
Firstly, many retail giants including Marks & Spencer have recently confirmed that they are to move over to Gift Cards in favour of the traditional voucher to enhance sales, brand awareness, purchase frequency etc. The va predicts that the UK markets can expect modest growth of around 25% growth based on consumer forecasting.

We at Nitecrest believe that due to third party distribution through gift card centres and the introduction to POS display stands at many leading UK retailers, it is possible to be far greater than predictions suggest. And with the relatively new introduction to Pre-Paid Gift banking cards who knows what 2010 could bring.