Viamericas Rolls Out Mastercard Cash Pick-Up Across The Country

Viamericas, the money transmitter offering international money transfer, bill payment, check processing and top-up services at thousands of agent locations across the United States, on Wednesday (Oct. 17) launched the Mastercard Cash Pick-Up cash disbursement service.

In a press release, Mastercard said that during the initial program, Viamericas agents will start receiving their weekly sales incentives in cash from any domestic ATM that is enabled with the feature. They don’t need a debit card or bank account with this service. When funds are made available, users of Mastercard Cash Pick-Up receive a text message with an order number, a four-digit pin and directions to the closest participating ATM, where they can withdraw the cash on the spot.

“For decades, ATMs have required two things – bank accounts and plastic cards,” said Dan Goodman, senior vice president of ATM product management for Mastercard. “Cash Pick-Up is evolving ATMs by using advanced digital technology to enhance the consumer experience, providing easy access to money sent to them anywhere, anytime.”

The Viamericas program, which is a service of Cross River, is available through more than 5,000 independent ATMs across the United States, Mastercard said in the press release. Thousands more ATMs will be enabled with the Mastercard Cash Pick-Up technology by 2019, the company noted.

“Cash Pick-Up is the latest addition to our suite of disbursement services we are bringing to market, [which] gives our clients choice over speed, cost and method to send funds to their employees and customers,” said Gilles Gade, CEO of Cross River. “This service supports a variety of use cases, such as compensating gig employees, reaching the underbanked and disbursing emergency funds.”

Mastercard said its service provides banks, merchants and money transfer companies with a way to replace lost or stolen wallets with instant cash and distribute bonuses, rewards and rebates in a more efficient manner. “The Viamericas incentive program is giving our agents the opportunity to experience this new cash-out channel and see the potential for increased transactions through a much broader consumer base clamoring for more choice – particularly the 90 million people in the United States who are unbanked or underbanked,” said Paul Dwyer, CEO of Viamericas, in the press release.