SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Stratos, Inc., the creator of the Stratos Bluetooth Connected Card™, today unveiled the Stratos Digital Card Issuance Platform at Finovate Spring 2015, the world’s premier financial technology conference. The platform will allow card issuers to instantly fulfill digital cards, analyze real-time cardholder behavior and increase loyalty and engagement.
“Stratos is reinventing the wallet. Just as consumers have migrated their music collections into digital formats such as iTunes, so too are cardholders now compressing what goes into their wallet,” said Thiago Olson, co-founder and CEO of Stratos. “Bringing the Stratos Digital Card Issuance Platform to card issuers marks a big step for us in the payment industry. We look forward to working with card issuers so they can leverage the platform to better grow and retain loyal cardholder customers while providing customers with a more convenient and secure in-store payment solution.”
The Stratos Digital Card Issuance Platform will:
- Provide the ability to collect and analyze aggregated, consolidated card behavior offering unprecedented visibility into customer card utilization patterns.
- Facilitate powerful “Top of Wallet” cardholder engagement and loyalty through push notifications, location-based recommendations, virtual issuance, and other features.
- Eliminate costly physical card fulfillment and reduce cost of customer acquisition and retention.
- Offer greater security than traditional, plastic cards.
“Users are sick of carrying lots of cards, most of which they only occasionally use, and financial institutions would love to cut much of the cost out of issuing and managing cards,” said Rob Enderle, Principal Analyst for the Enderle Group. “The Stratos Card potentially provides consumers with the one card solution they have been praying for without forcing them to learn a new technology, and financial institutions can retain the same values of a physical card while eliminating much of the cost of having to manufacture and deliver them.”
In the U.S., where more than two billion plastic payment cards are shipped annually, Stratos is making wallets flatter, not fatter. The Stratos membership-based all-in-one digital card consolidates credit, debit, rewards, membership, gift cards and other payment cards into a single dynamic card. As consumers gravitate toward next-generation payments, they prefer “universal” payment cards with their familiar ease and convenience, broad acceptance and greater security to smartphones or wearable devices like a smart watch. After a successful March launch, Stratos began shipping in April.
At Finovate, Stratos will be demonstrating the Stratos Card Issuance Platform on stage for the first time. Company representatives will also explain many features of the Stratos Card, including its Dual Stripe technology that gives it greater acceptance than other mobile payment solutions, and its patented cardholder-controlled Card LockDown feature that provides the highest level of security by shutting down when the card is outside Bluetooth range of a customer’s smartphone.
About Stratos, Inc.
Stratos is the creator of the Stratos Bluetooth Connected Card™, which consolidates plastic cards into a single, smart, dynamic card. Credit, debit, loyalty, membership and gift cards can be loaded onto the Stratos Card, simplifying the payment experience and empowering people to make better payment decisions all while using a familiar, universally accepted card form. Stratos offers its members free card upgrades, real-time location-based recommendations, patented security features and financial insights to ensure a superior customer experience. Merchants and issuers partnering with Stratos are able to strengthen loyalty and engagement with better data and improved communications to their customers without infrastructure change. Stratos was founded by Thiago Olson, Chris Bartenstein and Henry Balanon and is based out of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The company is funded by Toba Capital Partners, Western Technology Investment, Resonant Venture Partners and Hyde Park Venture Partners. For more information, visit stratoscard.com.
Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
