Cardholders should look to prepaid cards for better service
Top Card Customer Service Award goes to Advanced Payment Solutions
If you want the best customer service from your card provider, you could be better off getting a prepaid card. A £9.95 gold card with free purchase protection and the ability to get on call SMS account balances has been voted best in show. The card has already built up a loyal following with cardholders loading over £200 million onto the cards.
Prepaid card company Advanced Payment Solutions (APS) won Best Customer Services at the 2008 Card Awards on Thursday for its ‘world class service’, ahead of high street banks and category finalists and household names Sky, Barclaycard, Capital One, Marks & Spencer Money and National Australia Group Europe.
Its Cashplus prepaid gold MasterCard® won best customer service ahead of debit and credit card programmes. Advanced Payment Solutions was the only prepaid card company in the industry to be acknowledged by the judging panel for high service standards.
The Card Awards recognise best of breed programmes and are judged by leading industry and personal finance consumer advocacy groups such as APACs, Moneyfacts, Card World and Fraud Watch, USwitch and the Personal Finance Education Group as well as senior executives from VISA, MasterCard and American Express.
Judging Panel Chairman John Woods from Moneyfacts Group said the panel were looking for demonstrable true understanding of customers’ needs through the delivery of world class customer service as well as proof of the impact of an innovative customer care strategy on retention levels and customer satisfaction across different channels of service.
The Award is the second customer service Award won by APS and its sixth Award. Last year its Cashplus prepaid gold MasterCard card won Top Cardholder Services from hundreds of MasterCard prepaid card programmes operating in 14 European countries.
Advanced Payment Solutions’ Chief Executive Rich Wagner says:
"We are delighted to be recognised by leading personal finance stakeholders as the benchmark for customer service. This is a considerable achievement given the higher costs of servicing a prepaid customer and the tighter business model. It is a credit to our team and proof that we are committing investment to the right areas and this is reflected in our higher than average active cardholder statistics and increasing monthly loads."
"Contrary to preconceptions that pay as you go cardholders get a lower service standard, this proves prepaid programmes can in fact deliver customers as high a standard of service as traditional high street banks for their credit card programmes."
APS is the only prepaid card company that voluntarily provides purchase protection for its customers in line with the Consumer Credit Act and also includes protection for all transactions under £100, recognising that prepaid customers’ average transactions are likely to be lower in value and that they may be more greatly impacted.
It is also the only prepaid provider to offer cardholders text messaging alerts for balances and last five transactions and the choice of two tariffs: a monthly fee and also per transaction fee alternative, allowing customers to change between them depending on high or low usage periods.
Ends
Consumer website: www.mycashplus.co.uk
Corporate website: www.apsgroup.com
Awards website: www.thecardawards.com
Awards Judging Panel
- CHAIR, John Woods, Chairman, MONEYFACTS GROUP
- Eric Austin, Consultant and Chair, Financial Services Council, DMA
- John R. Bushby, General Manager UK and Ireland, Nordic & Baltic Countries, MASTERCARD EUROPE
- James Daley, Personal Finance Editor, THE INDEPENDENT
- Úna Dillon, Head of Card Services & Communications, IRISH PAYMENT SERVICES ORGANISATION (IPSO)
- Mike Hendry, Payment Systems Consultant
- Kevin Jenkins, Head of Business Development, VISA UK
- Marcel Knobil, Chairperson: CREATIVE & COMMERCIAL, Founder: SUPERBRANDS
- Kelley C. Knutson, Group Executive & Managing Director, TSYS EUROPE
- Edward M. Levin, Executive Vice President, ACE EUROPE
- Annich McIntosh, Managing Editor, CARD WORLD AND FRAUD WATCH NEWSLETTERS
- Sandra Quinn, Director of Corporate Communications, APACS
- Tim Roe, Vice President, Business Development, EMEA, Global Network Services, AMERICAN EXPRESS
- Steve Round, Chief Executive, HURLSTONS CONSULTING
- Neville Upton, Chief Executive, THE LISTENING COMPANY
- Wendy Van Den Hende, Chief Executive, pfeg (Personal Finance Education Group)
- Nick White, Director of Financial Services, uSWITCH
For further information, please contact:
mediaenquiries@apsgroup.com
T: 0207 100 5850
- Advanced Payment Solutions: Winner of Best Achievement in Customer Service at The Card Awards, London, January 2008
- Advanced Payment Solutions: Winner of Best Contact Centre Inbound Campaign at the Connect Awards, London, October 2007
- Advanced Payment Solutions: Winner of Best Prepaid Card Launch at the Annual Cards and Payments Conference, Berlin, May 2007
- Advanced Payment Solutions: Winner of Best Customer Servicing in Europe at the MasterCard Prepaid Card Awards, Prague, May 2007
- Advanced Payment Solutions: Winner of Most Innovative New Product in Retail Banking in the United Kingdom, European Card Review, London, November 2006
- Advanced Payment Solutions: Winner of Most Promising New Product in Retail Financial Services at the ifs/Capgemini Financial Innovation Awards, London, November 2006
About Advanced Payment Solutions
Advanced Payment Solutions was established in early 2004 to become the pre-eminent leader of general purpose prepaid cards and payment solutions in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe.
Its senior management team and board of directors have unparalleled experience in the prepaid and payment industries, bringing together experience from Barclaycard, VISA, Bank of America, Netspend, Western Union, Diners Club and Citibank.
The company, backed by leading US private equity and venture capital firm Trident Capital, aims to lead UK prepay market growth to emulate the success of prepaid payment cards in the US where prepaid cards now make up a trillion dollar market.
APS' first prepaid payment card, the Cashplus prepaid MasterCard, launched in September 2005, is the UK's first general purpose prepaid chip and PIN payment card. Cardholders can top-up their prepaid MasterCard card at over 20,000 outlets throughout the UK. Alongside developing its Cashplus product portfolio, APS provides a suite of services for businesses wanting to offer branded prepaid products to their customers.
Cashplus is issued by APS Financial Ltd or Broadcastle Bank Ltd, which are authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (www.fsa.gov.uk/register)
Cashplus is serviced by Advanced Payment Solutions Ltd which is a registered agent of Broadcastle Bank Ltd & APS Financial Ltd for this purpose.
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