Skye Bank Lanches ‘ Skye Bank Visa Int’l Card’

Skye Bank Plc has recently launched its new payment card - the Skye Bank Visa International card in other to a cashless society and customer satisfaction.

The visa card is a U.S. dollar denominated debit card, which is globally accepted as a means of payment at over 29 million merchant locations and one million ATMs worldwide in more than 220 countries.

Introducing the product formally at a media chat in Lagos recently, the bank’s Head of e-Channels Department, Mr. Chuma Ezirim said that the card was multi-functional in nature, that it could be used to make payments across multiple channels; namely, Automated Teller Machines (ATM), Point of Sale (POS) terminals, Internet, mobile etc.

Ezirim said that the Skye Bank Visa cards are available in three debit card variants for now: Classic, Gold and Prepaid.

He explained that the classic brand was a dual currency card linked to both a dollar denominated domiciliary account and a naira account. He said that the U.S. dollar was the primary currency while the naira was the secondary.

The Skye Bank e-Channels head added that the dual functionality enabled transactions done in Nigeria to be settled in naira (thus eliminating currency fees and charges), while those done outside the country were settled in U.S. dollar.

He, however, said that the cards were funded by the cardholders in the form of direct deposits into their dollar and naira account which operated independent of each other, “when the applicant is within the country (Nigeria) he has the option of withdrawing from his naira or dollar account,” he stressed.

He also assured customers on its safety, “transactions done with Skye Visa cards are highly secured. All the cards are based on chip technology, while all transactions are authenticated by each cardholder’s personal identification number,” he stated.

He added that both the classic and gold cards were debit cards, which were linked to salary account, while the prepaid card was a ‘pay as you go’ one.

To have the cards, Ezirim said that one had to be a Nigerian, but not necessarily a Skye Bank customer and that it was also available to foreigners too.

Speaking on fees charge on the cards, he said that for the classic card, an issuing fee of $10 and an annual fee of $20. On Gold cards, issuing fee is $30,while annual fee is $50, while the prepaid card is a flat fee of $20.

He classified e-Banking system into three areas that was cards, channels and the value added service.

The cards, he said were the pay before cards (prepaid, load cash on cards etc), pay now cards (debit card), pay later cards (credit cards, that is, buy things and pay later).

On the channels, he said that the bank had ATMs, POS terminals, mobile phones, Internet and the telephone, while the value added services involved e-Church, e-Hospitals, e-Schools etc.

Incase of loss, theft or damage, Ezirim advised holders to keep the number on the back of the cards safely which would be used to trace and find it incase it got missing.

He also added that at Skye Bank, cardholders would be receiving instant emails\SMS notification of all transactions done with their cards.

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