Make it Better day - The Children's Hospital Charity

Today is Make it Better day - organised by The Children's Hospital Charity in Sheffield. You can donate by simply sending a text or donating at www.tchc.org.uk/donate

To donate by phone simply send a text (based on amount you wish to donate) to 70070:

Theo14 £1 
Theo14 £2
Theo14 £5
Theo14 £10
 
And don't forget to complete the Gift Aid, as this ensures they get 25% more!

If TCHC raise £25k today, it will pay for a state of the art children's bedroom.

The Children's Hospital Charity in Sheffield really don't receive the profile that they really should given the huge number of children that they help. Last year, they treated:

1,300 patients from the North & Scotland!
183,000 from Yorks & Humbs!
1,100 from London and surrounding!
1,800 from Merseyside & Manchester!
20,000 from the Midlands!
800 from South West.
40 countries sent us kids last year!

Please donate now at www.tchc.org.uk/donate, or text Theo14 £1 / £2 / £5 / £10 to 70070 and pass this on.

Thanks

UKASH LAUNCHES FREE INSTANT PREPAID MASTERCARD®

Instant sign up, without any credit checks, empowers cash consumers.

Leading online cash payments provider, Ukash, has launched an innovative General Purpose Reloadable (GPR) prepaid card, supported by a mobile app that makes uploading of funds quick and easy. Putting customers in control of their money, the free smartphone app (iPhone and android) makes it easy to check transactions and balances while cardholders are out and about as well as top up their card as soon as they’ve exchanged cash for a Ukash code.

Cash can also be loaded directly onto the Ukash Prepaid MasterCard at UK Post Offices. Marking the launch, Ukash is waiving the card issuance fee until the end of April. The issuance fee - £5 and £9 respectively for the virtual and physical card – is being waived for anyone who applies for the card before the end of April 2014 and loads it with the initial minimum load of £20.

Designed for consumers who are excluded from mainstream banking and credit as well as those who want to control their spend or who are concerned about online fraud, the new Ukash Prepaid MasterCard card is available to anyone regardless of their credit status, and can be used instantly in its online form wherever MasterCard acceptance mark is displayed. Available in four currencies – GBP, EUR, PLN and USD and to residents of 29 countries – it goes to the heart of financial inclusion on a global scale. Uniquely, there are two versions of the Ukash Prepaid MasterCard; an online only card and a physical card. No matter which version of the card is selected, the card number and 3 digit security code are issued instantly for immediate use online as soon as the user loads funds. Customers who opt for a physical card can use the online version of their card until their physical card arrives in the post.

“The Ukash Prepaid MasterCard is designed to break down barriers for a whole swathe of society” explained David Hunter, Chief Executive, Ukash. “From immigrant workers to under 18’s* and consumers with poor credit records, there are a huge number of people who have to rely on cash as their main form of currency for day to day living. For these cash consumers, there are many aspects of society that are out of reach – simply because they don’t have a bank account or credit card. We aim to change that social exclusion with our innovative prepaid card.”

The Ukash Prepaid MasterCard card enables financial inclusion in seconds and, unlike other prepaid cards that are dependent on having access to a bank account to load money, funds can be added to the Ukash Prepaid MasterCard using a Ukash 19 digit code. This can be purchased with cash from the thousands of convenience stores and other outlets selling Ukash globally which, because they often operate outside traditional banking and retail hours, gives consumers real flexibility to load funds and then use their prepaid card just like any other debit or credit card holder. Users can also load their Ukash Prepaid MasterCard with cash at UK Post Offices or arrange for their employer to load their salary to the card each week or month.

In research conducted ahead of the launch of the new Ukash Prepaid MasterCard, it was found that the budgeting benefits of prepaid cards were particularly important to consumers. 42% said the greatest benefit of a prepaid card is the fact that they have control of their spending. And nearly a quarter (23%) said that they felt a prepaid card was particularly useful to help parents teach their children about budgeting.

The Ukash Prepaid MasterCard also addresses the need by many consumer groups to have a simple way to send money to family and friends. With the facility to have a secondary cardholder, the Ukash Prepaid MasterCard is ideal for money sharing between family members or friends. Plus the card to card transfer facility between Ukash Prepaid MasterCard holders enables expats and migrant workers to send money home at just 30p per transaction.

Ukash Prepaid MasterCard® to launch on FD Affiliate Network

We’re very pleased to welcome another big name in emerging payments to the Fifth Dimension e-money affiliate network: the Ukash Prepaid MasterCard.

The Ukash Prepaid MasterCard comes in two flavours: physical and virtual. The physical card’s perfect for shopping in-store and online – anywhere that MasterCard is accepted – whereas the virtual card is the best route to instant online spending, ready for use immediately after sign-up.

The new  Ukash Prepaid MasterCard launches on Fifth Dimension’s affiliate network

Cardholders who sign up for the physical card get a free virtual card to use online while they’re waiting for their card to arrive; combine this with the free smartphone app which facilitates on-the-go top-ups and convenient account management, and the Ukash Prepaid MasterCard becomes an incredibly flexible and attractive product.

But it doesn’t end there: both card types are available in GBP, USD, EUR and PLN, nudging the Ukash Prepaid MasterCard squarely into specialist travel-money card territory. And with the added benefits of a free secondary card and easy transfers between Ukash cardholders, the Ukash Prepaid MasterCard is perfect for sending money to friends and family.

The Ukash Prepaid MasterCard is live in the UK with a Q1 launch in Italy, France, Spain and Poland, with the support of Fifth Dimension’s dedicated e-money affiliate network.

For more information on the Ukash Prepaid MasterCard affiliate programme, or to become an affiliate, please apply via our website.

Londoners on board with contactless bus payments

Transport for London is celebrating the successful implementation of contactless card payments on all of London's 8,500 buses.

Since the service was launched in December 2012, more than 6.5 million London bus journeys have been paid for using contactless American Express, MasterCard or Visa Europe contactless payment cards, the U.K. transit operator said.

Contactless open-loop cards can be used in addition to TFL's existing proprietary contactless Oyster cards, if customers don't have an Oyster card or have run out of credit on their Oyster card. Tickets bought with contactless cards cost less than cash tickets.

TFL said it will launch contactless card payments in its wider transit network in 2014 for journeys on over-ground and underground trains. Following the full rollout, TFL said it will become one of the world's largest single merchants accepting contactless cards.

"It is fantastic that so many people are taking advantage of the ease and convenience of using their contactless payment cards to pay their bus fares," Shashi Verma, TFL's director of customer experience, said in a news release. "Each week we are setting a new record for usage, which gives us great confidence for when we launch contactless payments on the rest of the network and make contactless fully integrated in 2014."





TFL stresses the need for customer education when introducing a new ticketing system, and said it continues to remind customers about presenting their Oyster or contactless payment cards separately to buses' yellow card readers. If two cards are touched together, there is no risk of double payment, TFL said, but the payment might be taken from the card that the customer did not intend to use.

TFL said there have been no technical issues since its contactless payment system launched, and refund requests for charges made to the wrong card have averaged less than three per day, out of around 4 million daily bus journeys paid for on Oyster.

The company said it is working closely with the payments industry to prepare for the next phase of its contactless card rollout to trains. A pilot will take place over the next few months to test contactless payments on TFL’s train networks.

Source: Mobile Payments Today 

The importance of conversion in prepaid programmes

At Fifth Dimension we regularly talk about “conversion ratios” – almost to the point of being boring. But we think it’s for good reason, and here’s why. 

Firstly, it's hard work generating new customers in most sectors and this is especially true for prepaid card and electronic money programmes. With budgets being continually scrutinised then the level at which you can convert prospects to customers has never been more important.

So how we do measure it?

Conversion ratio % =	number of new customers
	number of website visitors

The graph below shows the number of new customers generated from 20k monthly visits, according to different on-site conversion ratios.

So a programme with 3% conversion will generate 600 new customers per month, whereas a programme with a 6% conversion will generate 1,200 new customers.

We think that’s quite a sizeable difference given what appears to be only a small change in conversion %. But to highlight this further, let’s look at the impact of not improving the performance? The chart below shows that if we wish to still deliver the 1,200 new customers per month at a conversion ratio of 3%, then a programme will also need to double its traffic to 40,000 visitors!

Regardless of how you generate it, that is a lot of new traffic to deliver and is considerably more expensive than optimising your current performance.

We think it's a no-brainer. If you do to, and would like help in measuring and improving the conversion for your current programme, then get in touch with Phil Campbell via phil@fifthdimension.com