This solution, enabled by Earthport’s cross-border payments service, is a multi-currency scholarship disbursement card, which accelerates availability of funds for cardholders and simplifies the process of sending and receiving scholarship disbursements globally.

Students can use the card to safely and conveniently take scholarship funds abroad. The prepaid card is a safe and convenient solution for both the sponsors supplying the funds, and the student who can transfer their scholarship funds from the prepaid card into a local bank account.

The secure, fast, and efficient card-to-bank international transfer service is enabled through a connection into the network of Earthport, the largest open network for global bank payments.

Banco do Brasil Americas’ CEO Antonio Cassio Segura, said: “We always aim to develop and adapt our multi-currency product portfolio to deliver products and services that meet the needs of our customers. By working with Earthport we’ve been able to launch this convenient mechanism for money management for students in a very short space of time. We believe it is going to be of great benefit to prepaid card customers as well as our scholarship sponsors.”

Banco do Brasil Americas has been built on Earthport’s multi-currency payments network, ensuring that fees and rates are known up-front and the receipt of funds are predictable. Using the prepaid card to transfer funds students will incur lower fees than they would by transferring money internationally using other methods.

Hank Uberoi, CEO at Earthport said: “We are delighted to see the work of this exciting partnership come to fruition. The Banco do Brasil Americas prepaid card is a great example of how a bank can leverage the Earthport service to develop innovative products for customers and create a truly value added service. With this card, students can move their precious scholarship funds internationally safely, cost-effectively and predictably.”

Luis Bittnecourt, student prepaid card holder, added: “The advantage of the service is being able to transfer money directly from Banco do Brasil Americas’ prepaid card to an international bank account. The system works without any problems, improving scholars’ access to their scholarship funds as the card allows access to payments without conducting several withdrawals.”

The service is available immediately to students in Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK.