The demand for prepaid channels in financial sector will continue to surge with product development driven by innovation and creativity, said a senior official of  Network International, a leading payment solutions provider in the region.

Banks and institutions are already realising this and are fast opening dialogue looking to us to help create products and solutions that compliment their current business, as well as a new audience” remarked Samer Soliman, vice president and  head of processing at Network International.

According to Soliman, the prepaid comprised 40 per cent of its new payment products developed over the last three years.

He was speaking ahead of the 'Prepaid Summit: Middle East 2011' being organised by VRL Financial News in Dubai.

Network International is a silver sponsor at the event which runs from March 22 to 23. Visa is on-board as the summit title sponsor and Epay is the gold sponsor.

Echoing Soliman's sentiments, Gups Jutla, eCommerce and prepaid manager for Visa, said, 'Prepaid is an emerging and innovative payment growth opportunity that can generate significant incremental economic and strategic benefit for customers.'

'Over the past six years, Visa has witnessed exceptional growth in the prepaid segment, and is its fastest growing product. As of 2009, the total prepaid segment in the GCC looks ready to be valued at $188 billion by 2012,' he noted.

'While prepaid cards offer many of the same benefits as debit cards, they are also an empowering tool to allow consumers without a traditional banking relationship to benefit from the advantages of electronic payments,' Jutla pointed out.

'In addition, due to the fact that prepaid products draw funds from a pre-funded account, which means customers essentially, ‘pay before’, prepaid is an effective financial literacy tool as you only spend what you have,' he added.

James Ratcliff, spokesperson for VRL Financial News reaffirmed the relevance of prepaid networking in the region. “The summit will bring focus on the players who value innovation as they will create the winning products in an increasingly competitive market,” he said.

The summit will be a networking platform for more than 150 experts to discuss emerging opportunities in the region such as prepaid cards issued by Islamic banks and perspective of the broader Asia Pacific, including Indian subcontinent.-TradeArabia News Service