Prepaid cards forecast to follow prepaid mobile phones in Sri Lanka

David Parker, a leading global expert on prepaid payment cards will be visiting Sri Lanka on 18 April as the guest of MTI Worldwide, a leading Sri Lankan payments consultancy, to run a workshop for banks.

He has forecasted that prepaid payment cards in Sri Lanka will soon see explosive growth.

“Prepaid cards are Visa/MasterCard cards that you load with money before you use them, just like prepaid phones.  Everyone can get one, there are no restrictions around credit and thus they offer a great opportunity for financial inclusion as well as offering niche products such as those for the regular traveller,” Parker explained. “With over 70 per cent of the Sri Lankan population owning a mobile and over 80 per cent of these being prepaid, there is a clear opportunity in Sri Lanka as well as a strong understanding of the prepaid concept.”

David went on to say, “Sri Lanka is a unique developing market as it has a strong POS and ATM infrastructure and yet an un-banked population of around 70 per cent. The opportunity for prepaid cards to drive forward the financial inclusion agenda is huge.  They can be used for many things from benefit payments to when combined with mobile enablement Person2Person payments.”

Globally prepaid cards have proven to be the fastest growing type of cards payments and have been forecasted by the Boston Consulting Group analysis 2010, commissioned by MasterCard, to be worth around US$146m by 2017 in the APMEA region alone.  This represents a huge opportunity for banks - a new product area and one with little risk as funds are pre-loaded onto the cards.

Prepaid cards also strongly support the government ambition of driving financial inclusion, something that has been shown to help drive GDP growth globally, lowers financial transactions for the population and improves quality of life for people.

Parker is the founder and CEO of Polymath Consulting, an organisation that works on projects and advises organisations across the cards and payments industry.  

Polymath Consulting is particularly well known for its work on prepaid cards, eWallets and mobile payments.  The organisation works across the complete value chain, helping banks with their overall prepaid strategy right through to market entry analysis; as well as working with processors and programme managers on segment analysis, certification and membership applications.   

For brands and telcos, they assist in product proposition development as well as managing RFP processes and reviewing existing contract relationships for both open and closed loop schemes. Geographically their client assignments have covered Russia, South Africa, Middle East, Europe and Asia. Parker himself has been lived and worked both in the Far East and Middle East before settling back in the UK. He is also a regular chair and speaker at conferences globally.

MTI Consulting is an international management consultancy, with operations across Asia and the Middle East and networked across the Americas, Africa and Europe.

Since 1997, MTI has delivered over 400 projects in 40 countries, applying MTI’s ‘Analyze > Strategize > Realize’ approach. Strategy consulting is the core focus, with specializations in corporate finance, research, technology and human resource management.