In today’s Darwinian business environment, when the way business is done changes fast as per demand, no one is immune. Not even the banks. From the days of checks, deposit slips, electronic transfers, gift-checks, e-payments, credit cards, debit cards to Stored Value Cards, banking has come a long way.

Stored Value Card or SVC, as they are better known, has changed the transaction systems.

SVC has come as a boon to the retail-merchants and banks that leverage the functionality it provides. Shashi Kapur, CIO WildCard Systems, a technology provider for electronic host based stored-value cards, virtual stored-value accounts, and Internet payment, talks about Customer Oriented Distributed Encryption System (CODES), a Web-based host application that allows feature rich options in the Store Value Cards section.

Stored value cards are one of the fastest growing products in the financial sector. Most stored-value cards fall into two categories – consumer cards and commercial cards. Consumer cards include gift cards, travel cards and teen cards. Commercial cards include payroll and health cards. Stored-value cards are of two types— host-based stored-value cards and chip cards. WildCard Systems provides host-based stored-value cards by providing applications to clients in a variety of verticals including banking or retail gift cards.

“We take mini wildcard integrations of an entire platform and dedicate them to our top ten clients in the form of CODES,” Kapur says adding, “I consider us to be an e-payment company. Our solutions are web-based. The Web applications are highly customized to each client, which is unique to them.”

CODES is a Web based application allowing card service providers greater operational control over the card functionalities. It allows service providers to integrate and dedicate the application to a set of clients, allowing them to exercise complete operational control.

The application allows the user to add or remove value, performs support and charge back functions. Kapur adds, “Such operational freedom enables our customers to brand the product the way they want,” Kapur adds. Using a secure technology and services platform Wildcards enable service providers to offer flexible product solutions that are configured and managed to suit individual requirements. “If you are a customer, or client, you can use your own authorization system, charge back system or use your own Web applications,” adds the CIO.

Working with a 250-member team, Kapur steers the IT team with a customer centric focus and highly aligned infrastructure. e-funds a provider of risk management, electronic payments and global outsourcing solutions recently acquired Wildcards Systems and Kapur adds, “We will continue function as an independent entity while providing integrated products. Our team both in the U.S. and in Chennai will remain intact,” he says.

With rising demand for SVC, Florida based WildCard Systems has processed over $3 billion of stored-value transactions and surpassed $2 billion in 2003 alone. Some of Wildcards innovative SVC’s include Visa Buxx, Bank of America gift card and Konica cash among others.

Today the company has 15 U.S. and 20 international banks, including HSBC, Bank of America, Wachovia, FleetBoston Financial and J.P. Morgan Chase as customers.

The next time you use a retail merchant gift card or a pre-paid phone card to call home you might just be swiping CODES.