The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

TRANSFER Solutions Providers (TSP) will relaunch its Mango Card by next month as a “Visa-enabled” product, with expectations of having a “full suite” of Mango mobile-money products in the market by year’s end.

Barry Malcolm, Transfer Solutions Provider’s chief executive, said that following the recent launch of its ‘Flash Ca$h’ micro-loan offering, the company was now aiming to relaunch the Mango card service.

“Mango really relaunched back in September of 2013, taking a look at a whole range of issues that it had to consider,” Mr Malcolm said.

“It has a brand new technology platform, which will enable it to provide a wide range of mobile money services to the Bahamian market, utilising cell phones or any smart device.

“The platform is in place and we’re rolling out different products over the next six months. The first one is Flash Ca$h. Flash Ca$h is important; it gets us into the markets and helps us build our markets presence. That will be followed very shortly by a relaunch of our Mango Card.”

Mr Malcolm added: “That card will be launched by February, and that card is a Visa-enabled card. The old card was a proprietary card.

“The new card will be able to be used anywhere. We have gotten our approval from Visa; we have already done the design, and we will be out with our product on the market by February.

“All current Mango customers will automatically get the Visa-enabled product. We’re very excited about this offering.” While declining to give numbers, Mr Malcolm said the Mango card has a very large customer base.

Describing the Visa-enabled Mango card as a “huge deal”, he added: “The Mango card is the basis of a Mango mobile account. The way we envision our product offering is that you can use the card to send money, pay bills, send Top-Up or make online purchases. It’s really positioning Mango mobile-money to be a digital wallet.”

Mr Malcolm said the company was keen on providing high-quality products at a low cost to customers. “For instance, with the Flash Ca$h, we were determined that if we were going to go into the small loans market, our products had to be the least costly in the market,” he added.

“That is a big part of our thinking. We want to come to the local market with financial products that make it easier for people to use their money and access the financial systems without paying a huge rate.”

As of last December, FlashCA$H began providing pay day loans, ranging from $250 to $1500, to public sector workers at a rate of 12 per cent.

“Flash Ca$h was rolled out to payroll reduction secured customers. That will expand as we roll-out Flash Ca$h over the next several months,” Mr Malcolm said.

“We had a soft launch in December, which went very well, and clearly indicated that there was a need for the service in the market place.

“The big concern was to come to market with a lending product that would address the need of small borrowers, but would not be overly burdensome and leave consumers further strapped by debt. Our interest rates are only 12 per cent and that’s a big difference.”