Financial Solutions made simple for businesses around the world: Axiom Prepaid Holdings

“Our vision is to create a better every-day life for people globally through our technology and card issuing solutions.”

If a consumer wants to avoid using traditional credit or debit cards or traditional brick and mortar banks, they might consider getting a prepaid credit card. Prepaid cards are easy to obtain and require no credit check. The consumer can use prepaid cards online or when they cannot pay in cash to ensure they never have a negative balance or the associated fees. Prepaid cards are different from traditional credit cards, even though they might carry the Visa, Mastercard, Discover, or American Express logos. Rather than run through an established credit line, prepaid card users spend only what they load onto the card.

Axiom Prepaid Holdings is an easy-to-use prepaid Visa^® and MasterCard^® products, programs, and services provider based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Axiom Prepaid Holdings was born of the desire of two entrepreneurial-minded banking industry veterans to disrupt the prepaid card industry. The motto of the company is to make banking simple. To give consumers and businesses around the globe access to innovative, easy-to-use, digitally driven, fun, flexible and secure products and services. Today, Axiom has nine offices and conducts business in 20 countries. Every day, the Axiom team strives to create 100 percent turnkey solutions to help cardholders gain economic freedoms and help businesses achieve growth and success. In addition to a variety of prepaid card options for consumers, it also offers a white label program and compliance and risk assessment programs for businesses.

In conversation with the key executives of Axiom Prepaid Holdings

Brief us about the journey of the company from its inception till date and the motivation behind it.

Axiom Prepaid Holdings is the result of two banking industry veterans – Steven Foster and Steven Urry – joining forces to address a glaring gap in access to prepaid financial products and services for the unbanked and global traveller. Together, with 60 years of combined experience, they launched a business that has taken an entirely new approach to providing easy-to-use, digitally-driven prepaid products, and services that work for everyone, everywhere. Their vision from day one has been to create a better everyday life for people globally through technology and card issuing solutions that give them financial freedoms. Axiom has seen explosive growth and today has nine offices and conducts business in 20 countries. The company continually is expanding reach, services, and programs to meet the needs of varying populations and demographics around the world. A few highlights from 2019:

• Expanded into Germany, France, Portugal, Greece, Italy and Spain
• Entered the Asia-Pacific region
• Introduced brand- and revenue-building White Label Programs
• Rolled out new prepaid cards and apps, including one that caters to the unique needs of millennials
• Opened new offices in Romania, France, Germany, Australia, Greece, and Austria
• Continued to invest in its high tech digital platforms to ensure the highest levels of security, regulatory compliance, speed, and advanced card features
• Expanded operations in North and South America

Brief overview of the products and services offered by your company:

Axiom is a global provider of end-to-end prepaid card payment solutions. We know how to simplify the customer experience when it comes to the complex prepaid card-issuing niche.

Our core Visa^® and MasterCard^® solutions in North and South America, Europe, and South East Asia were built with a focus on ease-of-use.

Moreover, with the introduction of our White Label Program, we upped the ante. It provides fintech firms with a 100 percent turnkey solution to allow them to focus on their core business. We kept in mind the varying needs of clients by creating both a direct API connection model for those with White Label experience and a full White Label program for desktop and mobile applications for clients that have not run a program before and want a full service, zero-touch option. For individual consumers, we give them visually captivating and intuitive mobile and desktop platforms packed with the features that bank and neo-banks offer. They get free virtual cards or physical cards if they prefer, with features that include: rewards, peer-to-peer transfer, direct deposit, spend tracking, monthly statements, currency swaps, and access to millions of merchants and ATM locations in 220 countries. Cardholders are assured of fraud and theft protection and around-the-clock customer service. Likewise, our free single-use virtual cards allow users to make secure single- or multiple-use purchases online.

What are the pain points of the industry addressed by the company and what differentiates your company from competitors?

Axiom has established a major foothold in the industry in a variety of ways but three of our biggest strength areas have been:

• Providing financial solutions to individuals and businesses for whom financial solutions were not available. Particularly in specific regions and countries, among GenX and millennials, and for the unbanked.
• White Label Programs that help companies take advantage of the brand-building and revenue-generating potential that prepaid cards offer.
• Our tech innovation and state-of-the-art digital tools and systems power our extensive card features, allow for a graphics-rich interface, provide seamless interface with business clients existing systems and offer a superior level of security and compliance and regulatory safeguards.

Please help us understand the current market landscape?

To understand the current prepaid card market landscape, consider these stats:

• International tourist arrivals in 2018 alone totalled 1.4 billion.
• In the U.S., cash represented just 30 percent of all payments in 2017.

Global travel as a norm and the shift away from cash transactions have been two of the key factors leading to the explosive growth in use of prepaid cards, which are inclusive of gift cards, travel cards and general use prepaid cards. In fact, the prepaid card market has grown year-over-year since 2006 with no signs of slowing.

What is the road map ahead?

2019 was a year of fast-paced progress, and we will take that to the next level in 2020. Over the past year, we have done our homework, established relationships with strategic partners, and built a market-by-market approach to providing the custom solutions our clients need. This year, Axiom Prepaid Holdings will continue its growth in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. We are also investing heavily in the continued development of our advanced digital tools and systems that power our core frontend, backend, and cardholder platforms and ensure the highest security standards and adherence to regulatory and compliance requirements. We are already off to a great start. In March, we are launching our FinFX MasterCard that offers nine currencies with 22 more to be added throughout the year. That card gives all Europeans access to a global travel card that provides ready access to their own money wherever they go without the complications of many cards. Our largest initiative has 13 more countries in the EEA live by this summer with our EuroPYM program, so all Europeans will soon have access to amazing products with little to no fees. We are also introducing a variety of new services, including microloans, White Label Program expansion, multi-currency cards, credit reporting, and more. Furthermore, because our team is our greatest asset, we will continue to offer a work environment and salary and benefits packages that attract and retain top marketing, product development, technology, and cardholder services talent.

In 2017, Steven Foster and Steven Urry co-founded Axiom Prepaid Holdings with a shared vision of making banking easier for everyone everywhere. Axiom Prepaid Holdings and its multiple verticals have seen explosive growth around the globe in that short time.

Steven Foster, Co-founder & CEO of Axiom Prepaid Holdings

Foster has 20+ years of experience as a global financial services executive with expertise in banking, card acquiring, card issuing, and software development. He manages the business development, client relations, day-to-day operations and marketing functions for the organization.

Steven Urry, Co-founder and Chairman of Axiom Prepaid Holdings

Urry is an innovative business leader and entrepreneur with 40+ years of banking and finance experience. He has built and managed a variety of successful enterprises over the years and today leads the strategic and tactical initiatives that stimulate revenue growth for Axiom.

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