ItzCash comes to aid of foreign tourists with prepaid cards

BENGALURU: Digital payments company ItzCash has extended the use of its prepaid cards to foreign tourists travelling to India to manage their expenses during the cash crunch in the country.

The company started dispersal of prepaid cards through two forex companies at the international airport in Mumbai earlier this week, and will soon make them available at airports in Goa and Delhi.

The company had launched prepaid cards in 2011 and has partnerships with Visa, RuPay and MasterCard. These prepaid cards can be used at any offline or online touchpoint where the three payment systems are accepted.

“This is the peak tourist season, and tourists coming to India need to exchange currency. The counters of currency exchange are short of physical currency to disburse. We are now giving them prepaid cards to give to tourists,” said Bhavik Vasa, chief growth officer at ItzCash.

“This is the only viable solution during such a cash crunch, and foreign nationals know how cards work,” he added.

“This is like the local forex travel card equivalent in India as is the case in several countries abroad,” said managing director Naveen Surya.

The company expects to see about Rs 100 crore in terms of digital disbursement to these prepaid cards for foreign tourists by the end of December.