Community Gift Card Programs Launched

metapaymentsystemsMeta Payment Systems, a subsidiary of Meta Financial Group, Inc.(NASDAQ:CASH), announced a new product line targeting local community shopping districts. The product is referred to as the “Community Gift product” and is designed to help local economies by promoting local retailers (such as retailers in a downtown or other local area).

Meta Payment Systems worked on early versions of the product in Sioux Falls South Dakota and Luverne Minnesota. In Sioux Falls, the “Downtown Sioux Falls, Inc.” community association partnered with Meta Payment Systems, Dacotah Bank, and Security National Bank of SD to issue the cards, and “the results were very exciting; we saw our card volume more than double during the December holiday season over the previous year and we expect to do even better in 2009.” (according to Mr. Daniel Statema, the Executive Director of the Sioux Falls community association).

In the Luverne project, the Luverne Chamber of Commerce partnered with Exchange State Bank of Luverne to offer Community Gift also with positive results. “The security features and flexibility of this gift card program combined with the ease of implementation made this program more appealing than the paper certificate program we had used in the past,” noted Jane Wildung Lanphere, Executive Director of the Luverne Chamber. Ryan Debates, Vice President of Exchange State Bank of Luverne added, “We were new to the community and the Luverne Area Gift Card program gave us a great opportunity to introduce ourselves both in terms of involvement and by attracting community members to our bank to purchase gift cards.”

These are excellent examples of the types of creative marketing that can be used by prepaid card issuers and affinity associations (such as Chambers of Commerce, Malls, shopping districts, etc.).

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