What should you ask when choosing a BIN sponsor?

To get the most out of a discussion with a potential issuing BIN sponsor, make sure you can articulate the payments needs and challenges of your business.

If you’re switching, think about the frustrations from previous providers. But also consider your future payment needs to benchmark suppliers. Often these discussions trigger wider considerations around the payments ecosystem that a programme owner may have built to successfully deliver their initiative.

Of primary importance in choosing a BIN Sponsor is cultural alignment based around a consultancy approach. You need a partner that has a wealth of experience in the sector, having deep seated relationships with the schemes and chalked up a number of successful programme launches. Their willingness to share learnings will be hugely advantageous and should help prevent shorted sighted decision making.

Here are some additional areas of focus that you should explore when in discussion with BIN Sponsors, processors or other facilitators of your card programme:

1. Contract – feel comfortable that the agreement accommodates short- and long-term objectives. Does the contract make allowances for potential future strategic goals – such as becoming a direct member or associate member of the scheme, or holding your own e-money license? And what are the implications with regards to exit clauses – are they punitive?

2. Account management and responsiveness – how will your account be managed, where is their customer services team based and what is the governance to ensure robust delivery. Ensure everything is documented in an SLA document that works for your business.

3. Ownership of the customer – this may seem like a very obvious and trivial point, but we’ve encountered contractual situations where a programme owner can’t directly contact their own customer. Ensure you own the customer relationship.

4. Programme construct – make sure your programme is set up with the card schemes to maximise its revenue-generating potential. Many programmes are registered on a consumer BIN, when a corporate BIN may be more appropriate. There are also beneficial interchange implications of the latter. This is especially relevant if you are launching both a consumer and corporate offering.

5. Improve your cash flow – ask potential partners how quickly they settle funds to your account. Getting paid quickly is crucial, irrespective of business size, and not all providers can settle within the hour as CashFlows does.

As a card programme owner you may be left funding cardholder balances as funds are settled from the acquirer that is assisting with the fund load process. CashFlows can alleviate this issue.

6. Future-proof your programme – ensure that any unplanned or planned changes to your programme can be accommodated quickly. If you plan to expand across sectors or geographies, or update cardholder Ts & Cs, you need to ensure that your processing partner is reactive and able to help now and in the future.

How CashFlows can help

CashFlows is an experienced and reliable BIN sponsorship partner. We’ve been actively involved in BIN sponsorship since 2010.

We make project implementations simple with slick on-boarding. We’re partner agnostic and already work with all the major schemes, processors and manufacturers. Plus, we’re always open to working with new ones.

Our dedicated, in-house staff have the knowledge and experience to guide you through the often-complex world of BIN sponsorship. We’re also there for you with support and strategic insight at regular formal reviews.

CashFlows is competitive on price and flexible on pricing models for issuing and ATM BIN sponsorships: issuing. In the case of card programmes be it debit, credit or prepaid, CashFlows can offer both issuing and acquiring services, simplifying supplier relationships, cutting costs and reducing the collateral requirements for the loading of prepaid card programmes.

To find out more

For more information on how CashFlows' BIN sponsorship could help your business, please contact me, Barry Thirkell, barry.thirkell@cashflows.com