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Download the Tablet Product Release Bulletin PDF Here.

Dear Valued Reseller:

On July 29, 2011, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued new anti-money laundering rules that in a very extreme instance may likely affect your merchants. These rules govern "prepaid access" and are designed to regulate the use of prepaid products (including "retail" closed-loop gift cards) so as to prevent money-laundering activities.

FinCEN has announced that it will begin enforcing these rules immediately, so all gift card merchants will be apprised by us by the end of this week, though to be honest with you we have evaluated all those in our database and don't believe any single client would have broached these new rules at any time since inception. Nevertheless we feel inclined to ensure everyone is apprised of the newly implemented rules.

All merchants who issue their own gift cards (either directly or through a third-party vendor) and merchants who sell or reload other company's gift cards are impacted by the rules. This would include closed-loop gift cards that we are involved with as well as "open loop" prepaid gift cards as you might see in a mall or grocery store being sold with the ATM network and/or Visa or MasterCard or American Express logo's, of which Secure Payment Systems is not currently involved in.

Your merchant's primary obligations are the following to be exempt from FinCEN SAR reporting and oversight:

1. 1. They may not load more than $2,000 of value onto a single prepaid gift card in any given day.
2. 2. They may not load more than $10,000 of value onto multiple prepaid gift cards for a single consumer in any given day.
3. 3. They may not load value onto a card causing the sum of (a) the beginning card daily balance and (b) all balance increases of that same day for that same card to exceed $2,000

To reiterate, we've not encountered any transactions like this in our history, but to be honest there is no way for us to determine that item # 2 has ever been breached (given we do not see consumer identification during a gift card purchase), other than to note that historically we've never seen $10,000 activated or increased in any one day from any one location.

Note (1): If the merchant does not already have an activation or balance increase daily limit set that is lower than the $2,000 value we will implement that change effective immdiately per location and issue a response of "Exceeds Load Max" to the terminal or POS system if the exception is triggered.

Note (2): If item # 2 above applies to your merchants then it is their responsibility to follow the new reporting requirements associated with the anti-money laundering regulation. In summary, they will need to collect demographic information from the customer, the card number being issued, as well as transactional information on a downloadable SAR 109 (Suspicious Activity Report) document ( https://fincen.gov/forms/files/fin109_sarmsb.pdf ) issued by the U.S. Treasury Department and to be remitted directly to FinCEN.

Note (3): In order to comply with item 3 above we will implement that change effective immediately per location and issue a response of "Exceeds Load Max" to the terminal or POS system if the exception is triggered.

Though the primary focus of the new ruling is to regulate "open-loop" network branded prepaid cards such as prepaid ATM cards and prepaid Visa/MC/Amex cards, the traditional "closed loop" retail cards were also ensnared to some degree despite the very limited number of transactions that might actually breach these new rules. If you have interest, the entire ruling can be found at https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-07-29/pdf/2011-19116.pdf or if you or your merchant has specific questions they may contact FinCEN's regulatory helpline at 1.800.949.2732.

Secure Payment Systems

We have two options available!

1. Mobile Couponing / Advertising - where a POS terminal is not needed!
2. Mobile Rewards - The same as above but also includes tracking your customer purchases via the POS terminal and providing mobile rewards texting as well !!!

We integrated our traditional gift & loyalty processing with the mobile text messaging expertise of Street Savings. Now, you can offer this innovative, easy-to-use, and affordable mobile marketing solution to every type of business.

Plus, as a part of this package we now also offer cardless loyalty/rewards. Instead of using a plastic card we only need the customer's cell phone number to track purchases via the POS terminal and provide rewards notifications. Or, if your merchant likes the idea of customized plastic cards, we can utilize both plastic and the cell phone number ... the best of both worlds!

Now, even small businesses can afford to send text message coupons and rewards to customer mobile devices. Mobile advertising is a hit because it is directed at those individuals that expressly desire to receive discount offers!

Call now for more information, pricing, WEBinar dates and ask how you can get started generating revenue with this ground breaking new service.

Plus, check out our marketing brochures as well as the merchant contract located at www.securepaymentsystems.net/literature.html.

April 13, 2011 - San Diego, CA. Secure Payment Systems (SPS), a national leader of value added payment services and transaction processing is pleased to announce integration into Giftango's proprietary eGift card solutions.

"Giftango is an exciting addition to the Secure Payment Systems lineup. Thanks to the Giftango integration, the merchants we serve now have access to a whole new suite of tools to assist with virtual gift card promotions, web based sales and distribution opportunities," said Steve Eazell, Director of North American Sales and Marketing for Secure Payment Systems, who added, "Besides having Giftango connect to our API, we now intend to connect to their API for allowing our thousands of gift & loyalty card clients the ability to connect to the Giftango virtual eCard and variable card design emailing options available in the robust Giftango back-end."

"Secure Payment Systems has a reputation for innovation in the many payment venues they operate in, including but not limited to secure electronic funds transfers, integrated gift & loyalty offers, plus its innovative franchisee underwriting in the corporate franchise marketing arena. Brands we work with encouraged an integration to the SPS front-end and they are excited to be issuing both virtual and plastic gift and loyalty cards through SPS," said Giftango Chief Marketing Officer, Mike Fletcher.