American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc.

Scott Scovel

Rachel Heitz

John R Rose

Jeffrey Peterson

Lisa Gordon

Caroline Philpott

Dave Lamb

Patricia W Stickley

Taryn C Harper

Miriam Alejandro

Stephen Howland

A system, computer product and method are provided for a card issuer providing a prepaid gift card to a purchaser, the gift card usable by a recipient of the card to pay merchants who participate in a financial network. The method includes receiving a payment of a predetermined amount, and loading the predetermined amount received from the purchaser into the prepaid gift card. The method further includes activating the loaded prepaid gift card, the activated prepaid gift card being usable by the recipient for paying any of the merchants in the financial network until the predetermined amount loaded in the prepaid gift card is exhausted, and being usable by the recipient to obtain a benefit beyond what is purchased from at least some of the merchants in the financial network.

System and method for providing a gift card which affords benefits beyond what is purchased

Systems and methods are configured to facilitate the distribution of transaction accounts through distributors. An exemplary method includes the steps of: issuing a transaction account to a distributor, receiving information from the distributor via the MICR protocol used by the banking and financial services industries, wherein the information reports the distribution of the transaction account, and processing the information via a Travelers Cheque infrastructure. The transaction account may be a pre-paid card and the distributor may be a seller of pre-paid cards. Distribution of the transaction account may be facilitated by use of a sequential number, such as a Travelers Cheque number. Thus, the system may be configured to be compatible with existing Travelers Cheque communication systems already in place. Furthermore, a financial transaction device may include a card that bears a serialized number, such as a Travelers Cheque number, in a manner that can be read by MICR technology.

Systems, methods, and devices for selling transaction accounts

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New York, NY, United States of America

Scott Scovel