University Fancards was recently featured by CardRates.com covering the company's history and products. Check out the excerpt below...
In a Nutshell: Prepaid cards from University Fancards give college sports fans the chance to show team pride with every purchase. Fans can choose a card from nearly 30 of the top teams in college sports, including the Alabama Crimson Tide, Florida Gators, Michigan Wolverines, and the Southern Cal Trojans. The Fancards Prepaid Mastercard® gives fans two card-art options for their favorite team. They are equipped with safety and security features, as well as the ability to add sub-cards to an account. Sub-cards are shared with family members to give children allowances or to budget household spending. The card designs even show up when they’re added to a smartphone wallet service such as Apple Pay or Google Pay.
The story behind University Fancards starts as do many new business or product ideas, with an entrepreneur looking for something that doesn’t exist in the marketplace.
In 2015, Lynn Boggs, Co-Founder and CEO of Fancards, wanted to get his son and future Co-Founder Greg Boggs a thoughtful gift card that featured his son’s favorite team, the Alabama Crimson Tide. The only issue was that a Mastercard branded team card did not exist.
Lynn then looked into college gift cards and found that no college had a gift card with its branding. This discovery led the father-and-son team to create University Fancards.
Its first partner was the Southeastern Conference powerhouse University of Alabama. Since then, the company has partnered with more than two dozen universities across the nation.
The company began by offering a non-reloadable Mastercard Gift Card, available at thousands of participating retail locations nationwide including Kroger, Wal-Mart, Dollar General, to name just a few. More recently, Fancards rolled out a platform to purchase a gift card online if they live outside of their favorite team’s market.
In 2018, the company added prepaid reloadable cards to its offerings. These cards include additional safety features and perks. Cardholders can use the company’s convenient mobile app to manage their cards, including to add money quickly or suspend a card in case it is lost or misplaced.
“We want cardholders to feel more like members and give them special experiences when we can,” Lynn said. “Just sharing with our members and incorporating what their college means to them through our rewards and the card experience.”
Greg told us the team comes up with new ways of giving away tickets every year. In 2021, if you set up direct deposit, you could win tickets. The year before, you were entered by making a purchase on your card.
“Lynn also serves on the advisory board of the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl,” Greg said. “We partnered with [The Peach Bowl] for gift cards to give to its players, and sent more than a dozen fans to one of the biggest bowl games of the year with ticket giveaways.”
Cardholders are also automatically entered to win tickets to see their favorite college sports teams just by using one of Fancards’ products.
This is just an excerpt from the full feature on CardRates.com. To read the full story and learn more about Fancards, check it out HERE.
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