(May 11, 2007) Prepaid card processor eCommLink Inc. is joining with mobile phone and payment technology providers to offer a cell phone and prepaid debit MasterCard tied to a single account. The prepaid MasterCard function eventually will be incorporated into the phone, enabling consumers to use the phone for payments at merchants’ points of sale, says T. Jack Williams, president of eCommLink.

“We’ve combined the best of both worlds,” Williams says. “That’s combining a mobile payment methodology in a cell phone with a physical piece of plastic, a MasterCard that can be used anywhere.”

Customers also will be able to convert wireless phone minutes into cash and cash into wireless phone minutes, Williams says.

ECommLink’s partners in the program are telSpace, a mobile virtual network operator that sells, provisions, fulfills, and cares for telecom services including pre- and post-paid cellular, Internet, and long distance; mCash Holding, a provider of technology for mobile banking and payments; and First Bank & Trust, Brookings, S.D., which will sponsor the program into the MasterCard network. The program is expected to launch in August.

The program works only with telSpace-enabled mobile phones.

Consumers will be able to load value onto the prepaid debit MasterCard via the automated clearing house, another credit card, or the MasterCard/Visa reload network, Williams says. “You have all of the functionality that we support today on the card side but that same account can be used to buy minutes for your prepaid cell phone. And you go back and forth,” he says.

Although consumers will initially receive plastic prepaid debit cards, that function eventually will reside on the mobile phone, Williams says. “Where we’re going is financial services on a phone via our prepaid MasterCard,” he says.