n 5 MINUTES WITH TOPICS

AH: Peter, how did you get

into the prepaid business? Have
you always been in payment
technology?
PJ: I have been in the prepaid
business for a litle over 15 years.
We founded Zprepay in 2009. We
also successfully completed our
acquisition of Precomm in 2011,
hence quadrupling our customer
base.
AH: You are based in Texas.
Did you start the company there
for any particular reason?
PJ: I have lived in Texas for a
long time and it has one of the
best small business structures in
the US. Texas is so multi-cultural
PJ: PrepaidStop.com is our full
service prepaid and bill payment
platform, which implements ad-
vanced, user-friendly prepaid
technology. Besides leting retail-
ers or merchants sell multiple
products through multiple points
of sale channels, we are capable
of private labeling our platform to
other ISOs in the market.
We currently have the capabil-
ity to connect to any domestic or
international prepaid pin or top up
vendor within a few days, rather
than weeks. We can sell all of our
products through iPhone and An-
droid based units.
AH: Do retailers really need
that it makes a perfect t for the
prepaid products and services we
oer.
AH: Tell me about the Zprepay
POS system? What does it oer
retailers?
PJ: Zprepay offers retailers a
state of the art prepaid platform,
which allows any store owner to
sell prepaid products, bill payment
products, gif card products, and
international top up products us-
ing multiple points of sale. This in-
cludes website, counter top termi-
nals, iPads, iPhones, and Android
capable tablets or phones.
AH: What about Prepaid Stop?
Tell us about that platform.
another gateway to ecommerce?
PJ: Yes, why not? We provide full
API connectivity to all customers
regardless of their monthly sales
volume. The customer simply has
to qualify under our credit under-
writing guidelines.
AH: Zprepay developed plat-
forms that work on Windows,
Google Chrome and Linux PC.
Why is that so important?
PJ: In todays modern and elec-
tronic world, every retailer has
a mobile tablet or some kind of
a smartphone so it is imperative
for prepaid companies to offer a
simple mobile app to resell pins
or top up to their customers on
Zprepay wants to make sales
transactions easy for retailers so
they developed prepaid platforms
that work on Windows, Google
Chrome and Linux PC. We talked
with CEO Peter Jasani about
the growth of prepaid wireless,
payments, and his company.
Copyright 2014 The Prepaid Press prepaid-press.com
WHERE PREPAID
CONVERGES
MAY/JUNE 2014
Volume 13. Number 3
5 Minutes With
Peter Jasani
CEO, Zprepay
By Arlene Hauben
$
Copyright 2014 The Prepaid Press prepaid-press.com
WHERE PREPAID
CONVERGES
MAY/JUNE 2014
Volume 13. Number 3
the go. Being able to process pins
or top up on all three platforms
eliminates the need for a retailer
to sign up with two or three dier-
ent companies for selling the same
products.
AH: What are your retailers
saying about Zprepay? What do
they like about it?
PJ: Since launching the Prepaid-
stop.com platform and piloting out
to over 1,300 retailers nationwide,
there has been an overwhelming
positive response to our platform,
pin and top up portal and report-
ing modules. Retailers like the sim-
plicity of our website, mobile apps
and speed in accepting any top up
or bill pay payments.
AH: How big is your network
of retailers? How many retailers
do you serve?
PJ: We have close to 4,000 active
merchants nationwide and close
to eight private branded ISOs us-
ing our platform, which accounts
for about 20,000 plus locations
nationwide.
AH: How do you provide cus-
tomer service? In other words,
how do you support your
retailers?
PJ: We provide 24/7/365 days of
customer service and tech sup-
port, available for our retailers and
private label ISOs. Merchants can
reach us via email, Instant Mes-
saging, and of course, our toll free
numbers. We have a feature in our
sofware that enables all dealers to
see any new products or services
added. We use Facebook and Twit-
ter, also email marketing such as
facilitates bill payments, accounts
details, wealth management, cash
in and cash out, multi-currency
transactions, cross border pay-
ment processing and much more.
AH: Any other innovations?
PJ: We happen to be working on
an IVR solution for store owners,
which will be ready in the next
three months. An IVR solution
will enable store owners to use
their phone to get pins and top up
phones. This solution ts perfectly
for retailers that are in ea mar-
kets, trade shows, or on the road.
AH: How big, would you say, is
the international top up and pay-
ments market?
PJ: According to the 2011 Ameri-
can Community Survey, there were
40.4 million foreign-born people
living in the US. Youre looking at
a very signicant market. If some-
one wants to send a small amount
of money, the money services are
uneconomical. Thats why theres
a developing market for interna-
tional mobile top-up. Over the
past several years this industry has
seen more than a 1,000 percent in-
crease in sales.
AH: What could be the next big
market?
Constant Contact to communicate.
AH: What advice do you give
your retailers? What if I wanted
to open up a cell phone store?
PJ: All I want to say to all retailers:
Now you dont have to worry about
buying an expensive PC or laptop
when you can sell all products from
a very cost eective tablet or even
your current mobile phone. We also
oer very competitive rates on all
prepaid products, international and
domestic top up and long distance
products as well.
AH: What other products
should we talk about here?
PJ: Through Prepaid Stop we are
also oering long distance pinless
products through a website called
zpinless.com. This system or por-
tal also has full ISO/Agent capa-
bilities where ISO/ Agents can set
up their own stores and oer com-
missions to their retailers directly.
We can private label this. Our long
distance switch platform offers
wholesale minutes, long distance
hard cards capabilities, pinless dial
capabilities and much more.
AH: Where do you think fi-
nancial mobility is headed in the
future?
PJ: Financial mobility or mcom-
merce is the future of payment
processing. Several products from
mobile banking to mobile money
to mobile wallet have revolution-
ized the payment and banking in-
dustries over the past several years
and this technology continues to
accelerate with new features due
to the computing power of smart-
phones these days. Mcommerce
PJ: The next major market will
be international bill payments. We
are working with several coun-
tries and intermediate companies
worldwide to enable consumers in
the US to pay bills in other coun-
tries, especially in South and Cen-
tral Mexico, India, Pakistan and
African countries.
AH: How do you think we can
improve the image of prepaid?
We want mainstream Ameri-
cans to trust us. How can we
make prepaid business a trusted
brand?
PJ: Right now, prepaid is lead-
ing the market. Even Verizon has
a prepaid plan. Most of the world
almost 90 percent uses pre-
paid mobile services as there are
no credit checks or sophisticated
payment options and it is bene-
cial for the consumer. This entire
model has changed in the US and
it continues to adopt this new pre-
paid culture.
Consumers are more aware of
their usage and money they are
spending every month. I believe
prepaid business is already a
trusted brand and in the near fu-
ture this will be the main feature
from all mobile operators. Look
at T-Mobile they have changed
their entire postpaid model to pre-
paid. Slowly, but surely, all other
mobile operators will go in this
direction.
Peter Jasani is CEO of Zprepay.
Visit Zprepay online at
www.zprepay.com.