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24 | NEWS | HIGHER EDUCATION


Bournemouth pioneers pre-paid card techno


A new pre-paid money card concept that rewards responsible student spending has been introduced at Bournemouth University. The Spree Student Cashback Card


is a pre-paid MasterCard that allows cardholders to only spend the total value of bursary payments that have been loaded onto their card, helping give students financial support by preventing them slipping into expensive overdrafts. Students also benefit from cashback on their shopping at well-known high-street retailers, thereby helping them to stretch their household budgets further. Bournemouth University is the first


university in England to introduce the cards. Andrew Wright, finance operations manager at Bournemouth


University, said: “We wanted to introduce a pre-paid card solution as research has shown that students want as much financial support as possible upfront. If you pay money to students in a cheque, some of that will be used up in their overdraft and bank charges. This is an opportunity to give them a new account where that doesn’t happen.


"THIS IS A CUTTING-EDGE, INNOVATIVE STUFF, BUT IT IS ALL ABOUT THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE"


ANDREW WRIGHT, OPERATIONS MANAGER AT BOURNEMOUTH UNIVERSITY


You can’t get into debt with it. “Students can choose whether they


want to have the cards, but the response so far has been very, very favourable. The money is put onto the account within a couple of hours, and they like the fact that it is simple, they can get the cash back, and they don’t have to queue up or wait each term for their payment. “This is cuting-edge, innovative stuff,


but it is all about the student experience.” The scheme was launched last


September, to distribute money allocated from the National Scholarship Programme (NSP), which has also been match-funded by the university. So far, nearly 800 cards have


been issued, with more than £362,000 given to students.


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