Master Card Buys Out Travelex

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The Wikileaks inspired Anonymous seige has barely affected Mastercard as it would seem. The card major announced today that it was buying pre-paid cash card business of exchange group Travelex for 290 million pounds. Travelex’s prepaid card business’ primary focus on travelers using plastic instead of travelers checks.

MasterCard Chief Executive Ajay Banga says

be an important driver for our growth in the whole prepaid arena

The prepaid card is growing rapidly in the industry dealing in trillions of dollars. The Travelex cash passports are being perceived as more convenient than the more traditional traveler’s checks. The main advantage of this card is that it will fix the user to an exchange rate he is comfortable with and the one present while he was buying the card. Thus he becomes immune to the market fluctuation between then and the time he actually lands abroad. MasterCard Chief Product Officer Tim Murphy added

There are a lot of strong program managers. The fact that this business has such a strong cross-border global footprint means that we can really drive the opportunities outside the U.S.