Blackboard Financial Aid
Solution Sees Strong
Momentum
Fee-Free Approach Protects
Students from $2 Million in
Service Charges Annually
WASHINGTON – August 12, 2011
– More than 120,000 students
are now participating in
BlackboardPay™,
a prepaid card program that
simplifies the delivery of
student federal financial
aid, Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq:
BBBB) announced today. By
enabling students to receive
financial aid on their
current student ID cards,
BlackboardPay™
eliminates an
estimated $2 million per
year in student overdraft
and PIN debit fees based on
average fees for the total
number of students now using
the solution.
BlackboardPay offers
students immediate access to
their financial aid and work
study funds while reducing
schools’ expenses associated
with distributing paper
checks. The solution was
introduced last fall in
collaboration with First
Data and the Discover®
Network.
The Money Network®-Enabled
Discover®
Campus Card
helps protect students from
excessive fees and
eliminates the need to wait
in long lines to receive
paper checks or for an
automated clearing house
(ACH) transaction to clear
in their bank accounts.
Instead, funds are available
on the day they are
disbursed and held in
FDIC-insured accounts.
“We’re excited to offer
BlackboardPay to our
students as a safe and
secure way to access their
funds and protect them from
banking fees,” said Pratima
Gandhi, controller at
Bradley University. “The new
solution helps us promote
banking responsibility for
our students and, through
the integration with our
current campus card, provide
them with a convenient
one-card option.”
Students at participating
institutions can use the
prepaid account integrated
with the student ID to make
purchases at millions of
Discover merchant locations.
Additionally, cardholders
can withdraw cash at the
approximately 43,000 ATMs
around the world that bear
the Allpoint, Pulse, or STAR®
Network logos. Unlike
competing offerings,
BlackboardPay lets
cardholders make
surcharge-free withdrawals
on the Allpoint ATM network,
the world’s largest
surcharge-free network.
“We are pleased that
institutions are realizing
one of the major differences
between BlackboardPay and
other offerings,” said David
Marr, president of
Blackboard Transact.
“Specifically, they now
understand that while other
offerings can generate as
much as 80 percent of their
revenue – in the millions of
dollars – from student
assessed fees, Blackboard
does not receive a single
cent of revenue from student
assessed fees.”
Cardholders also have access
to a Web site where they can
view recent transactions,
sign up for balance
notifications, transfer
funds to and from a personal
bank account and pay bills
online. They can also use
Money NetworkTM
Checks to pay bills or cash
the checks for free at
participating Money Network
check cashing locations.
Schools often see savings
from a reduction in time and
resources spent processing
paper checks. Some
institutions have cited
labor savings as an
important contributor to
internal cost-cutting
measures as they continually
seek to find efficiencies
and trim expenses.
“Salt Lake Community College
has been searching for years
for an ID/debit card option
for its students, but
nothing fit what we were
looking for until we heard
about BlackboardPay,” said
David Raiford, manager of
campus card systems and
services at Salt Lake
Community College.
“Our goal was to provide an
option for students to
receive their refunds faster
and easier, make purchases
with their ID card anywhere,
and help minimize
operational costs in
distributing refunds. With
BlackboardPay, we are able
to meet these goals. I would
highly recommend
BlackboardPay for any
institution’s ID/debit card
and refund distribution
needs.”
For more information about
BlackboardPay and Blackboard
Transact,
visit
www.blackboard.com/transact.
About Blackboard Inc.
Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq:
BBBB) is a global leader in
enterprise technology and
innovative solutions that
improve the experience of
millions of students and
learners around the world
every day. Blackboard’s
solutions allow thousands of
higher education, K-12,
professional, corporate, and
government organizations to
extend teaching and learning
online, facilitate campus
commerce and security, and
communicate more effectively
with their communities.
Founded in 1997, Blackboard
is headquartered in
Washington, D.C., with
offices in North America,
Europe, Asia and Australia.
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