MasterCard Worldwide has appointed Debra Janssen as its new managing director of its Access Prepaid Worldwide subsidiary, effective immediately. Janssen’s new role will see her focus on the management and delivery of consumer and corporate prepaid travel cards to business partners around the world, including financial institutions, retailers, travel agents and foreign exchange bureaus. These new responsibilities will be in addition to her current role as group executive of integrated processing solutions (IPS) at MasterCard.
“We are extremely excited to have Debra expand her current role and take on the mantle of leadership within the Access Prepaid Worldwide team,” said Timothy Murphy, chief product officer, core products, MasterCard Worldwide. “Debra brings to the group an impressive background and experience within the prepaid market, and has had extensive involvement with the Access team through her leadership of IPS, which forms a critical component of the Access offering. Supported by a strong team with deep, global expertise in prepaid programme management, she will lead our efforts to grow and execute on our business objectives and strategic vision.”
Prepaid cards have seen greater pick-up in the region -- including from public sector entities -- during recent years compared to the much larger commercial card business, driven in part by prepaid cards’ flexibility and branding opportunities.
Janssen replaces Mark Horgan who is leaving Access Prepaid Worldwide to join UK-based retailer Sainsbury. Prior to joining MasterCard in 2009, Janssen served as executive vice-president of EFT processing services for Fidelity Information Services, a global payments processor. Prior to that she was president of debit services group and the STAR Network at First Data Corporation, where she oversaw the debit and automated teller machine (ATM) processing business for more than 6,000 financial institutions.
In April, MasterCard completed the acquisition of the prepaid card program management operations of Travelex, rebranding it Access Prepaid Worldwide. The acquisition has strengthened the company’s international footprint outside of the US, and positioned the firm to better take advantage of opportunities to replace cash and traveller’s cheques in the cross-border payments business.
The appointment of Janssen also follows a series of senior hires for MasterCard Worldwide this year as it strengthened its Singapore-based Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa (APMEA) global products and solutions team. In May, the firm promoted Neel Nilakantan to regional head of prepaid products; Ruben Salazar rejoined MasterCard as head of consumer credit products from Barclays Spain; and Ari Sarker was appointed group head of global network products.
