The VisitBritain Currency Card: A GBP Card for Travellers from Germany and India

About VisitBritain.

VisitBritain is Britain's national tourism agency, responsible for marketing Britain worldwide. It works in partnership with thousands of organisations from across the UK. Funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, VisitBritain is structured into three regions, the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, where it has marketing and promotional operations.

VisitBritain's 29 online shops (www.visitbritainshop.com) directly receive over 2 million visits per year across the world from tourists wanting a diverse range of exclusive and value products including theatre and attraction tickets, travel passes and Oyster cards, hotel and venue booking, currency information and other products and services related to their spending in the UK. For further information, please visit: www.visitbritain.com

VisitBritain was keen to expand its support to travellers to the UK by offering a value for money, easy-to-use form of travel money - a prepaid GBP currency card

What did CorporatePay do?

CorporatePay worked with VisitBritain to identify key locations to launch the VisitBritain GBP card, and to date has facilitated the launch of the VisitBritain currency card in Germany and India.

The VisitBritain Prepaid CashCard was designed specifically for travellers, workers and students coming to the UK and offers:

• Value for money
• Available without credit checks
• Convenience
• Protection from fraud and theft
• Great control over budgeting with a prepaid card
• Available for friends and family (Germany only)

CorporatePay acted on behalf of VisitBritain, leveraging its experience of the prepaid card industry and its proprietary platform to set up the first VisitBritain GBP card in Germany in 2009 focusing on online sales (the VisitBritain CashCard, www.visitbritaincashcard.com).

This was followed in 2010 with the launch of the VisitBritain Currency Card in India. This launch required the organisation and implementation of a new partnership between Standard Chartered Bank in India and VisitBritain to facilitate card development. Given the lower penetration of e-commerce in India, a face-to-face sales process was needed. To resolve this CorporatePay and VisitBritain worked with VFS Global to enable the sales of the VisitBritain card in UK Visa Application centres across India, a sales process facilitated by VisitBritain's existing partnership with VFS Global. At present, the VisitBritain currency card is the only travel money product to be offered to UK visa applicants in the 12 UK Visa Application Centres across India.

CorporatePay also secured a deal with Countdown, a leading UK discount provider, to provide VisitBritain cardholders from India with access to Countdown's discount network across the UK. These cards give the holder access to an extensive selection of Countdown's restaurant and retail discounts, as well as providing great value for money when used in the UK.

In both Germany and India, CorporatePay have been, and continue to be, closely involved in the set up as well as the actual operation of the programmes including the commercials, sales mechanisms, and card marketing and design.

How did this benefit VisitBritain?

The implementation of this white label GBP card for VisitBritain offers a number of benefits including; the development of an ancillary revenue stream, further promotion of the VisitBritain brand to visitors to the UK, and the provision of more comprehensive support to travellers to the UK.