Trafford Housing Trust to introduce prepaid card scheme

Manchester’s Trafford Housing Trust, which manages 9,500 properties in the city, is to introduce a prepaid card scheme to enable staff to make ad-hoc purchases.

The VISA branded Prepaid Card provided by Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank will benefit the housing trust by significantly lowering costs, improving the payment process and by reducing time and paperwork. In addition, the new card will also provide Trafford Housing Trust with up-to-the-minute management information on the level and place of spend on each individual card.

Martin Roche, Senior Manager of Treasury at Trafford Housing Trust explains: “Staff often need to make ad hoc purchases and in the past we had a lengthy cheque raising procedure which was time consuming and inefficient. The new Alliance & Leicester system will cut costs and enable staff to make purchases more quickly by using a prepaid VISA debit card. We can easily top up the card with more money whenever we need to - either overnight or immediately in case of emergencies.

“An earlier solution we considered was distributing corporate credit cards but the prepaid card is able to offer all the advantages of a credit card without the risk of fraud. Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank is also able to offer the housing trust increased management information so that we get an accurate, up to date picture of any expenditure.”

Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank launched a range of Prepaid Card solutions during 2007. The cards offer a range of benefits for staff and customers, working like any VISA debit card – enabling payments at point of sale or via the telephone or internet and withdrawals from any ATM with the VISA logo. Once funded by the organisation responsible, the pre-paid cards, which are Chip and PIN enabled, can be used for transactions for up to three years or until the allocated funds are exhausted.

John Schratz, Sales and Marketing Director – Prepaid Cards at Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank said: “Prepaid cards offer an extremely effective money distribution solution by replacing the uncertainties of cash and cheques with a controlled system which is easy to administer. We are currently in discussions with a number of private and public sector organisations about the Prepaid Card, and are delighted that Trafford Housing Trust has chosen our solution over the range of payment services available to them.

“Prepaid cards offer a range of benefits, and with the market set to grow considerably over the next five years, Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank aims to be at the forefront of this technology.”

For further information on Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank’s Prepaid Card organisations should visit the bespoke website alcb-moneycard.co.uk.