TeleCheck recently announ-ced that they have united with Zenex Communica-tion (a phone card supplier and subsidiary of First Data Corpor-ation) to make prepaid phone cards easier for merchants. The Tele-Check/Zenex agreement allows merchants to activate the cards at the point-of-sale using Tele-Check's Accelera terminal. With Accelera, merchants pay for the phone cards after they are activated and can also add more minutes to the card. There are also plans to use the terminal to purchase prepaid cellular minutes.
As you may know, this isn't anything new. Lipman USA has had card activation available on their equipment for some time. Phone card activation is one of the many features that Lipman believes will allow a retailer to recoup their investment in Nurit hardware, by putting the POS terminal to work on other tasks besides payment authorizations. In the case of the Lipman, residuals on activation are also available through a program established for ISOs. Of course, you are also free to take advantage of the card activation capabilities of a Nurit terminal and establish your own phone card contract and residual opportunity.
Why is any of this important, you ask? Well, until now, merchants could only order previously activated cards, keep them secured under lock and key, and pay for them after selling them. Or, they could pay up front for inactive cards and activate them upon sale.
For more information about TeleCheck and the Zenex agreement, access their Web site at http://www.telecheck.com. You can find out more about Nurit terminal capabilities from Lipman USA at www.lipmanusa.com.
