Members of the world’s largest travel and lifestyle social networking community, WAYN.com (Where Are You Now?), will be able to control and manage their cash more safely using a WAYN prepaid international MasterCard. The WAYN Lifestyle Card, launched in conjunction with Tuxedo Money Solutions - the leading prepaid card provider - will enable its 10.8 million members to manage their money online, by phone, and even via SMS.

The WAYN Lifestyle Card offers great value for money and significant savings over most high street bank cards and credit cards on exchange rates and foreign ATM charges when outside of the UK. This is where the card neatly fits with the WAYN core demographic of independent travellers, gap year students, family holiday makers, business travellers and explorers alike. The cards’ flexibility and the safety aspects are likely to prove a hit with the travelling set: the card is not linked to any bank account, it carries less fraud risk, can be topped-up remotely by friends and family in emergencies and is safer than carrying cash as the card can be blocked if it is lost or stolen.

The holder’s money is held off the card in an online "eccount" from where it can be safely moved on to the card as and when needed. Cardholders can also share money with friends and family in the UK or abroad, using the eccount service to transfer funds between different cards. The online system is designed for easy and safe card management and allows users to text instructions via mobile phone including "block" to lock your card, "unblock" to re-activate your funds and "lost" or "stolen" to stop all use. A free SMS facility can also be used to alert users when card balances are low and need topping-up.

The card launches to UK members in April with plans to roll out in international markets over the year. The card is simple to set up and easy to use to spend online, through chip-and-pin terminals and ATMs anywhere in the world. Tuxedo Money Solutions has proven success with co-branded prepaid card schemes. In 2007/8 it launched branded prepaid MasterCards with leading partners The Sun and the News of the World newspapers. Tuxedo Money Solutions was also recently announced as the winner of the Best Consumer Marketing Programme for one of its cards at the UK Card Awards 2008.

The growth of pre-paid cards across Europe has been dramatic with people realising the benefits of money management over credit card debt. WAYN will continue to provide its service only to the over-18s market but rather than focus on applicants with restricted access to credit facilities, WAYN’s goals are for minimising fees whilst overseas, fraud and risk reduction, and access to discounts and tangible benefits whilst travelling. The future development of the WAYN Card will render it more intelligent as it will come preloaded with WAYN member benefits including discounts on international brands, free or discounted entry to international clubs, events and attractions, and more.

VIP members of the popular networking site will receive the card for free as a benefit of their membership package. All other members will be able to apply for the card at £9.95 without the requisite credit checks and personal data requirements normally associated with standard credit card applications. Top ups can be more conveniently made in GBP, with US Dollar and Euro loading soon to follow.

Director of Business Development for WAYN.com, Matt Jerwood commented on the deal: “This is a social networking first and we are delighted to have partnered with the best firm in the market. WAYN is a travel-centric site, and so our aim was to provide our members with a Lifestyle Card that can save them money when they travel. We also wanted to provide a secure, safe and useful alternative to carrying Traveller’s Cheques.

“We hope to expand the WAYN Lifestyle Card into a suite of travel benefits, and by having offline extensions to such a successful online brand as WAYN means we can continue to assist the travelling member even when they’ve logged off!”

Simon Black, Sales Director for Tuxedo Money Solutions commented: “WAYN.com is a significant social network and we are delighted to be partnering with them, becoming market innovators in the Social Networking space. We look forward to introducing the benefits of prepaid to the members of the WAYN site.”

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About WAYN.com:
www.wayn.com
WAYN.com (Where Are You Now?) is the world's largest travel and lifestyle focused social networking community website. The site operates in over 200 countries and membership has grown from 45,000 users in March 2005 to over 10 million today. WAYN.com allows its members to keep track of their friends' whereabouts and make new friends based on where they are now, where they have been and share where they are going. Top services on WAYN.com include travel guide and trip planning tools, such as photo and video sharing; interaction tools such as email, SMS and instant messenger, and forums.

About Tuxedo Money Solutions
www.tuxedomoney.com
Award-winning Tuxedo Money Solutions was founded in 2006 and has grown to become one of the UKs leading prepaid card providers. In 2007 it launched Tuxedo Maestro and MasterCard prepaid cards and their unique eccount service, incorporating mobile phone functionality.

Tuxedo also offers businesses the opportunity to produce branded prepaid cards of their own and to integrate directly with them to offer seamless payment solutions. Tuxedos strengths lie in the technology that underpins the operation of its cards and the flexibility of marketing solutions it offers to its partnering brands. Mark Simon joined Tuxedo as CEO in June 2007 to lead Tuxedo in to the next exciting phase of development. A number of high profile card industry experts have recently joined Tuxedo to boost their strong management team.