MyCanvas Card exciting Surfing in Hawaii promo is valued at at up to $11,474.50.

The first randomly drawn entrant will win a trip to Hawaii, with two economy return flights departing from Sydney, Australia, eight nights’ accommodation in a 4 Star Hotel and airport transfers included. Value $6,500.
The promotion ends on 5/11/2008 so there’s still time for you to get your MyCanvas card or reload your card at the closest participating store.

Remember, If you register online you can get it for free when you use the following promotional code “loadcashplay“.  Visit mycanvascard.com.au

The Canvas Pink card has been designed to provide consumers with an alternative to the cards currently available on the site that allows customers to choose what represents their personality best.

remember If you register online you can get it for free when you use the following promotional code “loadcashplay“.
Visit mycanvascard.com.au

SCX Global joined the Rêv Worldwide network of payments companies for underserved markets today through an investment by MPOWER Ventures. The development promises to accelerate the widespread availability of basic financial services and the opportunities they afford for the more than 300 million underserved consumers in the Asia-Pacific region by giving SCX Global, now Rêv Asia Pacific, the expertise and capital it needs to replicate its early success with prepaid in Australia throughout the region.

The partnership unites SCX Global, the company responsible for bringing prepaid cards to the Asia-Pacific region, with Roy and Bertrand Sosa, the industry veterans who pioneered the multi-billion-dollar prepaid debit market as founders of U.S. prepaid leader NetSpend, making prepaid a broadly accepted form of payment and bringing financial empowerment to millions of unbanked and underbanked Americans.  With backing from MPOWER Ventures and support from MPOWER Labs – the venture fund and complementary business accelerator the Sosas launched earlier this summer – the Rêv Worldwide companies have developed international networks of retail distribution and reload points for prepaid debit cards and an advanced global processing platform connected to the major payments networks, including MasterCard and VISA.

MPOWER Ventures and MPOWER Labs focus on investing in financial innovation for underserved markets and collaborating with likeminded entrepreneurs who share their commitment to building a more inclusive global financial system that reaches those currently excluded from access to basic financial services, more than 2 billion people worldwide.

If your like me your still contemplating whether or not to get yourself another prepaid VISA debit card in light of the BOPO fall out, unfortunately I needed one so signed up for the My Canvas Card Prepaid Visa Card, which thankfully arrived today (Now i can pay for my web hosting bills ).

I registered online for the card online about 2 weeks ago, for those of you looking to get your hands one now, there are available at your local new agencies. If you register online you can get it for free when you use the following promotional code “loadcashplay“.
Visit mycanvascard.com.au

I’ll be topping up my card and test driving my new Yellow Smiley Face Canvas Card tomorrow.

I’ve been strapped for time but will post and overview of their fee schedule and update the rest of the site.

My Canvas Card is here

Bopo customers will have received the following letter in the mail, I just received the letter today, explaining the current situation with the Bill Express Ltd and Bopo Customers funds.

If any BOPO cardholders have any enquiries, Cuscal’s has experience support staff on hand to help with any questions regarding your account. Contact Cuscal on 02 8299 9000 between 7:30am and 6:00pm (AEST) Monday to Friday.

I was hoping that I’d be able to transfer my funds to my Paypal account though, it seems I don’t have an option to fund my Paypal account using a credit card. If anyone knows of a way to fund a Paypal account using the BOPO card please leave a comment.

I just checked my BOPO card account to verify the card total so i didn’t look a fool when i buy my happy meal today, unfortunately was unable to access the account. See video below.

I’ll head out to see if i can get the account total via eftpos.

Read the rest of this entry »

If your unsure what type of BOPO prepaid VISA card you currently, Cuscal has released today another Q and A article for BOPO card holders. Please visit Cuscal website for more information regarding card types.

Last night the Bopo.com.au website has been updated to inform customers that Cuscal will cancel service to BOPO cardholders in 30 days (Aug 15th 2008). BOPO cardholders are advised to withdraw funds by the 15th of Aug. Any withdrawal request after the 15th Aug will have to go through a reimbursement application via Cuscal.

from their website…

As a direct result of the above changes to Bill Express and bopo, effective 30 calendar days from the date of this notice, Cuscal is cancelling services to bopo cardholders as described in the product disclosure statement. Please see your product disclosure statement under “Cancellation of Services”.

What you should do

The money stored on your bopo card will be returned to you. To avoid having to claim a refund you should withdraw your funds via ATM or EFTPOS purchases before the expiry of the 30-day notice period. After this period, any remaining funds on your bopo card will only be accessible through an application for reimbursement to Cuscal.

Visit BOPO site to read the entire notice.

For those of you not familiar with what’s happened with the BOPO Prepaid VISA card company and their Parent company Bill Express, The AGE, BusinessDay has an article on the whole Bill Express fiasco.

The Bill Express is said to owe creditors could be more than $250 million. Debt owed to New agencies across Australia has yet to be included in the debt total.

Optus is owed an estimated $50 million from the supply of prepaid recharge codes to Bill Express, with Vodafone owed $30 million, 3 Mobile up to $20 million and $10 million for Telstra, as well as a smaller amount for smaller companies that provide prepaid overseas telephone credit. Bill Express also owes finance company Asset Secure $13 million, German broker Deutsche Forfait $10 million and $7 million for finance of its electronic terminals.

Source: BusinessDay

While big companies are hit hard, those hit hardest are the employees left without redundancy packages or benefits along side Newsagency ownerw who are now forced into unwanted legal action regarding their Bill Express Contracts. Newsagency owners have expressed their opinions on the Bill Express Fall out on a well known blog - newsagencyblog

BOPO Prepaid visa card holders can breath a sigh of relief, based on a press release from Cuscal Website (The Financial Institute that endorsed the BOPO prepaid VISA cards ) Bopo Customer funds are safe.

Below is an excerpt of the 11th July Press release. Read the entire Cuscal press release here.

Bill Express advised the market on 8 July 2008 that it has been forced to appoint administrators. This situation impacts the bopo Visa card, which is issued by Cuscal but owned by Bill Express (through a subsidiary company called bopo cards (Australia) Pty Ltd).

bopo cardholders are right to be concerned about the Bill Express news, however cardholder funds are being kept safe by Cuscal. It is important to highlight that Cuscal is a separate company to Bill Express. Cuscal is a regulated Authorised Deposit-taking Institution (ADI) with a AA- Standard & Poors’ credit rating. This makes Cuscal as safe as any other Australian bank.

Cardholders can be assured that the value stored on bopo cards will be returned to them. However, the administrator now managing Bill Express is following due process and unfortunately this is limiting the services and functionality available to bopo cardholders.

At the time of publication on Friday 11 July 2008, cardholders can still make EFTPOS purchases and ATM withdrawals, but cannot reload money on their cards.

In the event that any cardholders cannot use ATM or EFTPOS purchases to withdraw funds, Cuscal has established a process to facilitate reimbursement of funds stored within bopo card accounts.

Cuscal has offered a chart to help explain how Bopo Cardholders can view card balances and withdraw funds.

View Bopo Card Balance Chart