Multiservice Prepaid Cards for British Students
- Cheshire Integrated Transport Services (CITS) partners with Applied Card Technologies, British ticketing specialist, and sQuid, contactless payments operator, to launch Charisma: a card designed for students, available on West Cheshire College and Chester College campuses.
- This payment solution encompasses prepaid, contactless ticketing (ITSO-compliant Cheshire Travelcard), student ID as well as retail and leisure discounts through Cheshire’s own loyalty scheme. Online account management, balance consultation and top-up are also available and dedicated ACT Retail POS terminals are also at their disposal. The card also stores all possibly related discounts.
- This card has been adopted by over 4,000 students, attracted to its prepaid feature and to the ability to make small transactions on-campus.
- The all-in-one offer focusing on student life comes along with affinity services. Considering the UK’s leading contactless market, it could not but include a pay-as-you-go option, especially convenient for ticketing.
- In France, Moneo’s e-purse has been added to students’ cards since 2005. Through relying on students-dedicated services, Moneo has also launched a prepaid multiservice card (carte CROUS) proposed by most French colleges to encompass e-purse, university restaurant, vending machines, photocopy services and, even, laundry services in students’ residences. The first carte CROUS is free of charge: students simply have to ask their university’s restaurant administration for it.
- These examples are asserting the interest of a service-based affinity approach to enable the deployment of prepaid and contactless uses. Likewise, EasyMove proposes a global approach to services to favour the development of NFC services in France.