Community Card Program
Posted on October 27, 2007
Filed Under Launch | Leave a Comment
International Card Establishment, Inc. (I.C.E.) (OTCBB: ICRD) today announced that it intends to launch a unique Community Card program in the Thousand Oaks, California area in January 2008. The community card will enable local residents to earn rebates from participating merchants while also benefiting local school districts and charities. Merchants will not have to pay any fees to enroll in the program and will rebate a percentage of each participating customer’s purchase to the consumer.
Here is how it works: I.C.E. will sell the Community Card to local residents through its sales teams. Each sales team may include students or other fund raising groups, such as a little league team. Participating residents benefit by receiving rebates from local businesses, merchants benefit from additional business and local school districts and charities benefit from contributions made by I.C.E. I.C.E. will pay their salesmen, whether students or fund raising group, a portion of the proceeds from the initial card sale. I.C.E. will contribute a portion of those proceeds to the school district or local charity. I.C.E. will send a check to the Community Card holder for his or her cumulative rebates on a periodic basis. The Community Card will be automatically renewed, subject to an annual fee, by credit card at the end of each term.
One problem that many gift and rewards programs face is convincing the consumer to carry an additional card in their wallet. Many consumers already feel inundated with credit and other plastic cards that overstuff their wallets. To overcome this objection, I.C.E.’s Community Card program allows consumers to earn rebates by simply using their existing credit and debit cards, including Visa, MasterCard, and American Express as their Community Card. Once the consumer registers their credit or debit card of choice, they will earn rebates automatically from participating merchants by using the designated card for payment.
Consumers will also be able to monitor their savings by logging on to a dedicated I.C.E. website. Merchants will likewise have a dedicated I.C.E. website to track how much additional business they generated by their participation in the Community Card program.
I.C.E. recently conducted a beta test with 12 student-salesmen selling for three hours per day on Saturday and Sunday. During this six-hour period, they sold in excess of 100 cards at $20 per card.
Separately, the company announced that M.A.G. Capital, LLC, I.C.E.’s largest shareholder, extended a $500,000 line of credit to enable I.C.E. to launch the Community Card program. The line of credit provides for monthly interest only payments at 8.5% per annum, with principal due 18 months from the date of each advance.
“This initiative is a creative way to grow our existing revenue base through a new sales channel that draws on our gift and rewards expertise and transaction processing experience,” said William Lopshire, CEO, I.C.E. “While, like all new ventures there are significant risks, the potential returns of the Community Card program are significant. Assuming a successful launch in the Thousand Oaks, California area, we plan to expand the Community Card program to several other local communities with populations generally exceeding 100,000 residents.”
Mr. Lopshire went on to add, “There are literally hundreds of communities that fit this demographic criteria in California alone.”
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