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SKNA National Bank in Visa Prepaid Card Controversy
By Sheena Brooks
A spokesperson for the St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank says the indigenous bank’s hands are clean in an escalating Visa/ePassporte prepaid debit card controversy.
The bank’s name surfaced on Internet blog sites last week after California-based ePassporte, a digital payment system, informed its customers that credit card giant VISA International had “suspended our banking partner’s (St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank) ePassporte Visa program”.
According to Krebsonsecurity.com, an Internet news and investigation blog, ePassporte owner Christopher Mallick notified customers via e-mail on September 2. In addition to informing of the suspension, the e-mail said, “At this time ePassporte can no longer issue Visa Cards, and the ability for our account holders to make point of sale purchases and withdraw funds from ATMs has also been suspended.”
The ePassporte e-mail asserted that the company had done successful business with Visa International for over seven years and that, “we do not know why this drastic action was taken by Visa”.
It then gave assurance to customers, stating: “As soon as we have more information we will be in contact with you. In the meantime please be assured that your funds are safe.”
Visa International issued a press release on September 7 stating that the suspension of the ePassporte Visa program had been at the request of SKNA National Bank, which issued the prepaid debit cards.
“At the request of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank (SKNANB), on September 2, 2010, Visa blocked network access for prepaid cards issued by SKNANB and operated by ePassporte.com to address certain program deficiencies. ePassporte.com is a third-party agent that works with SKNANB. It is important to note that impacted SKNANB prepaid cardholders are still able to access their funds through SKNANB or SKNANB’s agent, ePassporte.com. For more information cardholders should contact SKNANB or ePassporte.com,” the press release said.
Various blog sites show a mounting number of posts from SKNANB ePassporte Visa cardholders claiming that they could not access their money to “pay my rent and my bills,” etc.
The Observer spoke exclusively with Patricia Wilkinson, SKNANB executive manager in marketing, who said the bank had been cleared of any wrongdoing as outlined in the Visa press statement.
“Visa sent out a press release and spoke on the matter. They posted a press release absolving National Bank of any wrong-doing. We have no issues with Visa because they clarified the issue,” she said.
Wilkinson declined to make any statements regarding ePassporte’s relationship with SKNA National Bank, referring The Observer to Visa’s statement.
“I’m not speaking to the relationship with ePassporte and National Bank. The claims made in the initial press release, Visa spoke to that on our behalf. I can’t speak to anything Visa has said about ePassporte. ePassporte put out the initial statement that started the controversy and Visa clarified essentially the Bank’s position. Anything else that Visa would have said about ePassporte that is between them, and you’d have to call ePassporte or Visa to get information from them. I am not speaking to anything else,” she asserted.
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thestkittsnevisobserver.com/2010/09/10/epassport-controversy.html
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