Japan's Travel Bank has partnered Tsys to launch a pre-paid Visa card designed as an alternative to paper travellers' cheques for people going overseas.
Tsys will provide processing services for the cards, which can be used to make payments at overseas Visa merchants and cash withdrawals from ATMs.
Hitoshi Kondo, MD, Tsys Japan, says: "We are confident that Japanese consumers who travel overseas will find Visa-branded prepaid cards to be a convenient way to pay when travelling abroad."
In the UK A&L, Barclays, Lloyds TSB, Virgin Money and The Post Office have all launched pre-paid plastic cards aimed at holidaymakers and travellers. In the US Travelex teamed with MasterCard and West Suburban Bank to launch a pre-paid foreign currency card aimed at US customers travelling to Europe.