Jean-Claude Meyer is the executive director of LC2 Group, promoters of Nasuba Express. LC2 has footprints in broadcasting, telecommunications and interconnection sectors. Mr Meyer has lived in Nigeria for over fifteen years and has used his contacts in the country to drive the company’s new product in Nigeria. He spoke to emeka okafor on the new product.

Nasuba Express
Nasuba Express which is promoted by LC2 group is originally a telephone card company enabling people to reach home at cheaper rate. As we evolved, we started to work on how people can also get news back from home. Then we rapidly created a television channel which is also available live on the internet and of course across Western Africa. Then we evolved the idea thinking how the teeming population can now send money back home without using the traditional money transfer offices which are usually very problematic in the fact that you need to follow up during working hours and you have to physically go there.
It is also dependent on fund availability at the receiving end and of course the time delay also considered. Sometimes it can take you days and if it is a weekend, how do you do to address the immediate need or problem? We then created the Nasuba Express Card. It was originally targeted at the Diaspora to be able to have a Visa card that can be accepted anywhere around the world. Rapidly we actually saw the possibility in the card being a tremendous tool to bank the unbanked because it does not require bank account. Any bank partnering with us can freely dream of an increasing 15million card holders. Not only that we have an ingenuous card loading system, which amongst other ways uses the scratch card.
Scratch card is a possibility which means just like people have been using scratch card to recharge their phones, you will be able to load your money onto your card on Nasuba Express directly using your scratch card. There’s no need to go to the bank to deposit your money, no need to have a banking relationship in the first place, you just walk a minute away from where you are. Scratch cards will be distributed just like the telephone scratch cards. You get it and you scratch and in a minute your money is loaded on your card.
Partnership with Visa Card & MasterCard
We are fully licensed by Visa and they have helped us to develop this product as a matter of fact. All our call centres, monitoring platforms are fully approved and licensed by Visa International and Vocalcom. Our approval and license is worldwide. Every single continent that has Visa will be working with our card. We are in full partnership with Visa and Master Card.
Loss of Card: This is very simple. You have to call us usually within 24 hours telling us that you have lost your card or it’s been stolen or damaged. At this point we cancel it and we simply ask you to get another card. Since these cards are not nominated you can naturally pick them up from retail approved point or from the base itself. Once you have done that, just call us again and tell us your new card number and we will reload all the money you had on that very card that was lost, damaged or stolen. So your money is safe. Handling cash invites the risk of losing the cash or have the risk of getting robbed and this has direct implication on your health obviously and on your finances. With this card, you don’t need to spend more that a minute with cash in your pocket. Right away as you get your salary or get paid for whatever it is, you get a scratch card and load the money onto your card and you can be withdrawing from it with a lot of securities behind it like secret question, and PIN. If you are confronted by armed robbers let them have the card and afterward give us a call and we cancel the card and issue you another one with all your money intact.
Security Features: First of all, like every debit or credit card that exists, the security features are minimally the same. Like I said before we are fully Visa approved which means that they also considered our security procedures and ensured that what we have in place is valid against transfers and any form of attack. But we have implemented extra security features simply because we don’t want to suffer from any kind of bad reputation. These security features that normal banks don’t normally always have are first of all security questions that only you will testify to us indirectly to our call centre. You will be the one telling us what you want the question to be and the answer. If you fail to supply the correct answer, no matter you are the real owner of the card you won’t be able to access the money online unless we go into ID verification. Any other card, what you need is to find the PIN, if you are chip and PIN enabled, which we have to commend the CBN for their new regulation about enforcing the EMV compliance in Nigeria. It’s not like this all over the world but it is a very good thing that Nigeria, being the leading economy in Africa is enforcing it. We will completely enforce this on all our cards not only in Nigeria but across the world. On top of that we offer some extra security steps.
Nasuba Express and International Regulations
Like I said, all our products will be chip and PIN. Not only that all the international security regulations and all the legal aspects have been fully abided to with the card. In each of the country where we are launching Central Bank regulations will be followed. There is no case our card will constitute itself to money laundering or to any other activity that is deemed illegal by the Central Banks of each country’s operations.

Competition with Other E-Payment Solutions
First of all, let me say one thing, there’s no other single product in the world that does what Nasuba Express Card does. Some e-Payment companies or products will let you transfer money from card to card but that is done with bankable bank account to obtain the card. Ours doesn’t require bank account. We are also viable solution to bank the unbanked like telephone. Because our card does not require a bank account, it is easily acceptable unlike other e-payment solutions that claim they bank the unbanked with bank account. In this case people have to go to the bank to load their account and go through other processes. Our solution is the scratch card which will be easily available. As soon as you have the cash, you just have to walk a minute away from where you are, get the scratch card and give the money to the person that has the ticket or the PoS in the approved retail and load the money directly into your card.
Targeting the Unbanked
Our target is not the unbanked, not the Diaspora. Our target is to ensure that the one trillion naira that goes into the cash business yearly is secure. Our target is hundreds of billion being transferred from one place to the other either locally or internationally transferred inward into Nigeria. Those are our target. All those monies in the hands of the unbanked, the Diaspora, we want to convince all of them to use our product so that we carry their funds safely in a very reliable fast and cheap manner because we are very cheap.
Accessing the Rural Area
As our card does not need a bank account, as you would know you don’t have many bank branches in the rural areas, so that first of all gives us a step. With us, you don’t need a bank account, you don’t need to go to the bank neither do you need bank relationship. Our card is easily deliverable in the rural areas since it is not nominated and there are many ways of marketing it and getting it across the rural areas. We could very well think of a marketing way like a truck with a couple of marketing people on board and internet connection such as 3G that MTN,  Glo and other telecom companies provide, and they go to the rural area in different regions explaining to the people what we provide. In the rural areas you can find the scratch cards. 63 million Nigerians have telephone that means the number does not exclude people in the rural areas. It also means that people in the rural area have access to scratch card and that is all you need once you have access to your card so it is very easy for us to implement in the rural area.
How We Make Our Profit
I was having a meeting the other day with bank representatives and I actually told them that our product would become very cheap. Ours is usually so cheap that it is cheaper than known money transfer alternatives for example. The banks will ensure that the rate is cheap on the local market because they are an active part of fixing the rate, but on the international market we will ensure that it is cheap. Our brand colour is red; black and white which are also the colours of Santa Claus. We don’t value the amount for transfer, we value volume. We are in other countries all around the planet, we have volume advantage. Our card is not an exclusive product and will be available to all banks in Nigeria, therefore the market is complete and we are ensuring volumes. Our card also is marketed in the same way in other countries of the world.
Actual Launch of Product in Nigeria
In Nigeria, we are actually working on that. We are in very good terms with many different banks, not all of them by any mean. The feedback we get from the banks is really encouraging. Provided that we finalize with the banks soon enough we don’t need a couple of months, let’s say four months maximum to be on every street in Nigeria. As soon as every aspect legal, financial, marketing, and partnering is finalized to the level we would consider sufficient and deem acceptable to present to the Nigeria population, then we would launch. We have Nigerian partners that are working with us to achieving that goal. We are working hand in hand with many different Nigerian companies and individuals to make sure that Nigeria hits the market in a very hasty manner.
Telecoms Companies
For sure, they are very important to our business. We will be mutually beneficial. Of course everybody that is calling for our card is doing that through a telecom company. Also we are talking with telephone companies thinking how we can try and save cost for them by issuing Nasuba scratch card which people can use to reload their phones.