Here at Cachet, remote deposit is our core product. Our success at this is demonstrated every day by innovative companies like the Ingo Money Network, the Simple mobile bank, the H&R Emerald card, and Yellow Pepper Mobile, a mobile pioneer in Latin America. Now we are poised for even more success. Purchasing the Prepaid Mobile Platform Business Unit from DeviceFidelity , as we announced last week, broadens Cachet’s market reach and the depth of services we can provide our growing client base.

The acquisition, which includes the Moneto prepaid mobile platform and a core VISA prepaid mobile wallet platform means Cachet now has the capability to support the most complete line of mobile financial applications available in the marketplace. It helps us to empower clients with all manner of new and still-to-be envisioned mobile functionalities and capabilities.

Moneto consists of a prepaid mobile money platform and a prepaid mobile application deployable one module at a time. Clients not only get a robust feature set and flexibility to add new features, but timely executions as well. New apps up and running in weeks, not months.

The core VISA prepaid mobile wallet platform powers the VISA Buxx program offered by VISA. The program includes a prepaid card designed for use by teenagers. Parents can load the card and monitor their teen’s spending online or via their mobile device.

Both platforms are now part of the set of core competencies we can offer clients, and demonstrate our commitment to linking financial institutions to the mobile environment.

Cachet will leverage these platforms to offer program managers, banks and credit unions an even wider array of convenient, cost-effective and feature-rich mobile apps. Services like instant good funds for check-to-prepaid card loads, expedited bill payment from the convenience of a mobile device, card balance inquiries, person-to-person transfers, even contactless card payments. That’s not all. In fact, the potential applications are really only limited by the imagination and expectations of our clients and end users.

Combining our existing capabilities with Device Fidelity’s prepaid mobile platforms provides Cachet with a robust and complete solution to offer our bank and credit union clients working with the underbanked. I’m referring to the estimated 40 million American workers who don’t work at jobs where Direct Deposit is an option. We’ll also be able to hone our focus supporting and expanding services to the unbanked.  Both of these segments of the population are heavy users of prepaid debit cards, and mobile deposits and check cashing to prepaid cards are attractive options for them.

Prepaid debit cards are attractive to financial institutions looking to replace revenues diminished by regulatory restrictions such as the Durbin Amendment caps on interchange fees. Non-bank providers of financial services – such as check cashing establishments – like prepaid debit too. It shows.  At a compound annual growth rate of 33.5% prepaid debit transactions grew faster than any other noncash method of payment between 2009 and 2012, according to the 2013 Federal Reserve Payment Study. The consultancy Mercator estimates $202 billion was loaded onto open loop (nationally branded) prepaid cards last year, and that the prepaid industry is growing at a rate of 42% a year.

Mobile functionality is the most strategic change to financial services in at least 10 years. It is not simply fashionable to have a mobile strategy anymore, but integral to the customer experience. With the Device Fidelity acquisition, Cachet is positioned better than ever before to help financial services companies take full advantage of opportunities that exist – and those that have yet to be identified – to leverage mobility, with the flexibility they need to drive customer loyalty and bottom line results.