Israel Postal Bank partnering with Payoneer - issues foreign currency credit cards

United States of America -- Free-Press-Release.com-- Aug 10, 2011 -- This is a product currently not available in the Israeli market and the Israeli Postal Company is optimistic that these new currency-friendly, prepaid credit cards will provide a comfortable alternative to travelers’ checks and large amounts of cash. The Postal Bank plans to take advantage of the upcoming summer travel season and expects to issue some 50,000 credit cards in time for this.

In this new venture the Postal Company will be partnering with Payoneer, a company specializing in secure online payments made via a prepaid MasterCard ® card. Payoneer was established in 2005 by veteran Israeli businessman, Yuval Tal. The company is headquartered in New York, and has R&D facilities in Israel. Payoneer founder Yuval Tal has extensive experience and knowledge in the field of prepaid cards, online security and currency exchange, having been involved previously in E4X, an international payment company. Payoneer provides its customers with prepaid MasterCard ® cards. These can then be used to transfer funds internationally, directly and securely – eliminating the need for checks, bank transfers and credit ratings. Payoneer services a range of end-users including, among others, online merchants, contractors, students studying abroad and freelancers.

For the Israel Postal Bank this will be its second foray into the world of credit cards, following its partnering last year with Visa Europe when it was authorized to issue Visa credit cards. This made the Postal Bank the first non-bank entity in Israel to issue Visa cards. The Postal Bank’s goal is to replace travellers’ cheques with the preloaded credit cards, which can also be reloaded, and in this way enable international travellers access to large amounts of cash. Another advantage for travellers will be a saving on the rather steep currency exchange surcharges related to international credit card transactions, as all purchases made using the new cards will be in local currency. The Postal Bank has been offering foreign currency exchange services and travellers’ cheques for a number of years, generally at better rates than offered by commercial banks. Other international activities of the Postal Bank include the provision of payment services to Giro account holders in various European countries, and the redemption of international money orders.

The infrastructure for issuing and handling of the credit cards will be provided by Payoneer. This will include all stages from manufacture of the cards to operations, including the returns system, currency exchange and logistics. At this stage the Postal Bank will not be entering into a partnership with any of the local credit card companies. Should this decision change in the future, there will be a selection process to choose the company, which will then assume responsibility for defrayment.

In order to expedite the cooperation between Payoneer and the Postal Company, the latter’s central acquisitions’ committee granted an “exemption to contract a particular supplier to issue and operate foreign-currency enabled credit cards”. Both the Postal Bank and the legal firm representing Payoneer declined to comment on this step.

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Payoneer
Ella Gibs
1-800-251-2521
http://www.payoneerreview.com/