How Businesses Can Use Virtual Prepaid Cards to Make Global Payments

While the idea of a global village seems ancient, a single world currency still seems like an idea far from fruition. Sending money across the globe may have become more uncomplicated compared to the old wire transfer of the yesteryears. But it still does call for calculations, conversions, charges, intermediaries, and gateways - making the process cumbersome, lengthy, and not always foolproof.

The problem compounds when one needs to disburse rewards in bulk for international surveys or other marketing campaigns. If this resonates with you and you’re looking for a solution, there is almost nothing as easy as prepaid virtual Visa and Mastercard.

Who wouldn’t love to receive a fully customizable and personalized gift? So it is no surprise that over 80% of people choose virtual prepaid Visa over a branded store gift card.

Why do people make that choice, and how does it help overcome the challenges? Let’s take a step back and discuss the likely significant challenges of such a payment system.

You’re most likely to face three core issues when delivering global rewards. And they’ll take the form of - delivery, redemption, and flexibility.

The Challenges of Global Rewarding

Physical gifts may have more of a feeling of being a ‘gift,’ but it can be extremely cumbersome for a business to roll out physical gifts to recipients regularly. Why?

1. Delivery

Sending physical gifts, in general, is a time-consuming and labor-intensive process. Even within a domestic geographic territory, these logistics can be challenging. When taken to a global scale, the intensity of these problems multiply. With physical gifts and checks, a database of addresses is necessary, to begin with. The addressing conventions vary from country to country, as do legal requirements.

When sending out rewards to different countries, this is a cumbersome process susceptible to errors. Delivery can take several days or even weeks. And if pushing for quicker deliveries means added costs and bigger budgets.

2. Redemption

While delivery is a challenge for businesses, redemption is a challenge for the receiver. Most gift cards come with a string of conditions attached, more often than not. For example, redemption during a specific time frame; redemption possible only for selected products, etc.

Moreover, not every store has an online presence, making redemption even more cumbersome–sometimes, physical locations could be too far. And if incentives and rewards are hard to redeem, they also lose their meaning and the joy they carry.

3. Flexibility

Though more flexible than a material gift, gift cards generally lack the complete flexibility that cash offers the receiver. Moreover, for the giver, there can be different sorts of concerns - most gift cards are closed-loop cards with a single-use feature attached to them, which means there can always be some amount of money left behind on a gift card ends up going to waste. So, in reality, the receiver may not avail of the full benefit of the card value that the receiver has budgeted for.

How do Current Global Payments Solutions Score?

The most popular choice for sending rewards across national borders is digital gift cards; for instance, G2 offers $10 Amazon gift cards per review for the software listed on their website. In addition, many businesses that work with gig workers across the globe use PayPal to make payments. However, both become inferior choices compared to virtual prepaid cards.

1. Digital Gift Cards

Arguably, digital gift cards eliminate a considerable amount of these problems. But there are other issues attached to them. For instance, although gift cards issued by, let’s say, Amazon or Starbucks are available digitally, easy to send via email, and fairly popular, some come with geographic restrictions and limitations. For example, an Amazon.com gift card cannot be redeemed on Amazon.in. Simply put, they come with their set of terms and conditions attached, too.

2. PayPal

PayPal is quite a popular choice worldwide for international payments. However, to send money via PayPal, one must set up individual accounts for each reward recipient. Transactions can take a long time (5-7 business days) to be processed, and the whole process needs to be manually run. It’s also cost-intensive, with charges at every stage. Again, this is cumbersome and can also take a heavy toll on program budgets.

Oops! That seems like a dead end…

Long timelines, high costs, and manual processes increase the chances of mistakes, upfront payments, and commissions on each transaction. These challenges and shortcomings have thrown you off, haven’t they? The good news is there’s always a solution to most problems thrown at us. So while this seems like a dead end, it doesn’t have to be. Here’s a possible solution that will make global payments easier and instant.

Most Promising Solution - Virtual Prepaid Cards

The light at the end of what seems like a very dark tunnel is Visa® and Mastercard® prepaid cards. Instant electronic delivery and wide acceptance make virtual Mastercard and Visa prepaid cards a very convenient option for global rewards programs. They also allow the exact same reward to be used across multiple countries, a massive benefit for multi-country surveys and campaigns, as it takes the hassle out of rewarding international participants.

What is a Virtual Prepaid Card?

A virtual prepaid card gives users all the benefits of a physical prepaid card, but digitally. Like physical cards, these virtual prepaid cards also carry a 16-digit number with a CVV number. When these virtual prepaid cards come from a universally recognized brand like Visa ® or Mastercard ®, receivers can use them anywhere, just like physical debit cards.

Physical cards are easy to misplace; recipients may forget to carry them in their wallets. However, one can add virtual prepaid cards directly to the recipient’s mobile wallet. Virtual prepaid cards also ensure instant delivery and hassle-free redemption of funds.

Hence, virtual prepaid reward cards have become an excellent choice for businesses and reward recipients.

Explore Why Virtual Prepaid Cards as Survey Incentives are Better than Paypal?

Benefits of Virtual Prepaid Visa or Mastercard Cards

Here are the benefits of virtual prepaid visa cards:

1. Ease of Delivery

Since these cards are digital and prepaid, they are easy to deliver instantly anywhere in the world over email.

2. Global Acceptance

Visa and Mastercard payments are supported across 150 countries and in most major currencies worldwide, including U.S. and Canadian Dollars, British Pounds, and Euros.

3. Ease of Local Currency Conversions

Virtual prepaid reward cards allow you to send monetary rewards and incentives in the currency of your choice —USD, EUR, GBP, PLN, INR, CHF, MXN, CAD, etc. Furthermore, the currency conversion at the recipient’s end is also automatically taken care of by the prepaid card enabler.

4. Better User Experience for the Receiver

These cards are not just usable in physical stores but online as well at many businesses. The simplicity, ease of use, and vast choice benefit make it a preferred choice.

5. Fully Customizable

These cards allow businesses to customize the cards they send out to awardees by adding business branding, for instance, logo, tagline, colors, etc.

6. Lesser Costs

The use of digital cards does not have the added costs that come with physical cards. They don’t need to be printed and shipped, which calls for a reduction in the business budget for actual reward value. Here is a cherry on the cake: they’re environmentally friendly!

How do Virtual Prepaid Cards Function?

Virtual prepaid cards allow businesses to refill balances from time to time on a need basis. It’s a little different from using physical cards and allows for more flexibility.

Businesses must secure heavy monthly credits to use physical gift cards. Rolling out rewards at a high volume becomes quite challenging when one has to secure credits like this. In addition, there is a possibility that transactions get blocked, putting campaigns at risk. That’s when virtual cards come to the rescue. As a business, you could choose to append data to transactions on the card and manage refills on the cards accordingly.

Where and How to Obtain a Virtual Prepaid Visa® and Mastercard®?

Generally, these cards are issued by a bank either by filling up a form or via net banking or phone banking. One needs to fill in long forms with details of each recipient–like personal particulars, payment instrument, the purpose of gifting, etc. Then, once the bank approves the paperwork and a card is issued, a password is generated and sent to the receiver for use.

Getting virtual prepaid cards directly issued from banks can be a cumbersome process. But you can get around these limitations with the help of the right digital rewards management platform. If you’re looking for an easy international rewarding solution, Xoxoday has you covered with virtual Visa and Mastercard prepaid cards. Request a demo today to figure out which option works best for you!

Key Takeaways

Global rewards or payments can be challenging, especially for a large business–Imagine rewarding thousands of participants for a survey campaign.
Virtual prepaid Visa and Mastercard cards are a great alternative to make instant global payments or send rewards to recipients anywhere across the globe.
While much thought may need to go into sending out rewards to various categories of recipients based on their persona, prepaid Visa and Mastercard help save resources by eliminating choice at the business end and allowing freedom of choice at the receiver’s end.
One can fully customize prepaid Visa and Mastercard cards with the brand logo and elements.
Virtual prepaid Visa and Mastercard cards are more budget-friendly than most other digital rewards options.
Having the right partner can help make the process smoother and more effortless in card loading, distribution, and delivery.

Xoxoday - The Right Partner

Xoxoday provides a full-service support system for businesses that want to get on the virtual prepaid cards bandwagon. Here are some of the ways Xoxoday makes things easier for businesses:

Provides a platform that enables the easy sending of virtual prepaid cards from popular networks like Visa ® and Mastercard ® instantly to anyone around the world
Allows the receiver the joy of instant gratification by helping businesses send out payments immediately upon the performance of the incentivized task - either by approval or with full automation - whatever suits you best
Provides discounts on bulk purchases and lessens the strain on the program budget
Tracks the rewards going out to ensure no repeat claims are made and only charges the businesses for claimed rewards
It saves businesses money! There’s a minimal convenience fee, no upfront charges for rewards, no extra commission charged, and a low integration fee.

If you have a checklist for your dream virtual prepaid card partner, this list of benefits must surely have ticked all boxes. Get in touch with us to set up your prepaid virtual cards for reward programs today!