Bling Nation, a local payments network provider for community banks nationwide, has announced that La Junta, Colorado-based The State Bank went live on with the Bling Nation Community Payments Service.
Bling Nation said that the service enables financial institutions to support payments between their local demand deposit account (DDA) customers and their merchant customers by bypassing the current global debit payment model with an efficient and local payment network.
The State Bank reported that the consumers benefit from the network’s multiple layers of security, the convenience and redemption of rewards in real-time. Merchants are no longer faced with expensive interchange fees and can offer customizable rewards programs to customers.
Brad Rose, Vice President of Information Technology and Security for The State Bank, said: “The State Bank operates in a competitive market. In a community of 8,000, there are five banks, including one national branch, and two credit unions. As a result, it is important for us to distinguish ourselves by offering our customers lower costs and increased security and convenience in making and accepting payments, while also driving local commerce.”
“The State Bank has signed more business accounts since May 21 as a result of Redi Pay Bling than in the past two years. The merchants we have enrolled in Redi Pay Bling represent 80% of our target in the initial roll-out. Through word-of-mouth over less than a month, 5% of our customers have activated their BlingTags, and we have planned targeted direct marketing and other marketing initiatives to drastically increase that number,” he added.
