Metavante Pairs Electronic Bill Pay With Prepaid Cards

Processor Metavante Corp. has come up with a seemingly natural but rare pairing of two booming payment niches: payroll cards and electronic bill payments. A major provider of both services to financial institutions, Milwaukee-based Metavante this week introduced what it calls Metavante Prepaid Bill Payment. The service makes Internet-based bill payment available to unbanked consumers who use prepaid debit cards, notably payroll cards, offered by Metavante's bank clients to employees of the banks' business customers who don't have traditional checking accounts. A checking account usually is considered essential to the electronic bill-pay process because that's the source of the funds to be transferred to the biller. In addition, banks have been slow to allow customers to use either prepaid or credit cards to make online bill payments. “It enhances our payroll card solution substantially,” Frank D'Angelo, group president, Metavante Payment Solutions, tells Digital Transactions News. “The fact that I can link vertical lines of business horizontally is kind of unique in the industry.” A payroll cardholder can use the service from any Internet-connected computer, including those at work, home, or in a pubic place such as a library. The cardholder first logs onto the bank-branded, Metavante-hosted Web site affiliated with his payroll card, then clicks on “bill payment.” That click starts an automatic transition to a bank-branded, Metavante-hosted bill-pay Web site. The cardholder can begin making or scheduling payments, including recurring payments, and establishing billers with the freedom to reach any biller. Metavante currently has direct connections to about 600 billers, according to D'Angelo. Funds availability is validated before a payment is actually initiated. Funds can be debited from the cardholder account and transferred to the biller via Metavante's direct links or through the automated clearing house, depending on the biller's preferences. The cardholder receives an e-mail confirming payment. According to a Metavante spokesperson, more than 75% of Metavante's bill-pay transactions are fully electronic. Although the product is brand new, it already is attracting a “large amount of interest” from Metavante's bank clients interested in enhancing their relationships with unbanked or underbanked consumers, D'Angelo says. D'Angelo won't say how many prepaid cards Metavante processes on behalf of its clients. Metavante is paid on a per-account/per-transaction basis for the new prepaid bill-pay service, but D'Angelo refuses to disclose details. Metavante is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Milwaukee bank-holding company Marshall & Ilsley Corp.