March 15, 2007
Atlanta/Bellevue, Wash. – Charter One Bank N.A. (Charter One) and Coinstar, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSTR), a multi-national company offering a range of 4th Wall™ solutions for the retailers' front of store, today announced an agreement between Charter One and Coinstar E-Payment Services Inc., a Coinstar subsidiary, for Coinstar to distribute the universal Charter One MasterCard® Gift Card through Coinstar gift card malls in drug, grocery, mass merchant, and convenience stores across America. The program is being facilitated through RBS WorldPay, an affiliate of and processing service provider for Charter One. Rollout will begin in second quarter 2007.
The Charter One MasterCard Gift Card offers consumers the unsurpassed convenience and flexibility of being able to use the card at millions of locations where debit MasterCard is accepted.
“Coinstar's vision and innovation in providing retailer front-of-store solutions is well-known and respected in the industry,” said Melanie Chewning, RBS WorldPay's senior vice president for Strategic Initiatives and officer of Charter One. “We are proud to team with Coinstar to help meet the increasing consumer demand for gift cards with our premier prepaid product.”
Coinstar's category management process includes inventory control, management of card sourcing, display design, and merchandising and technology integration for point-of-sale.
“With the addition of the Charter One Gift Card to our gift card mall, we have enhanced our product portfolio for retailers,” said Steve Verleye, senior vice president and general manager of E-Payment Services for Coinstar, Inc. “After talking to retailers and examining current gift card mall solutions, we believe we have a balanced program that addresses retailer challenges, and drives traffic, sales and revenue.”
About RBS WorldPay
RBS WorldPay is a leading, single-source provider of electronic payment processing services – including credit, debit, EBT, checks, gift cards, e-commerce, customer loyalty cards, fleet cards, prepaid cards, ATM processing and cash management services. The U.S. payment processing division of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, RBS WorldPay is a non-bank subsidiary of Citizens Financial Group. For more information, please visit www.rbsworldpay.us.
About Charter One Bank N.A.
Charter One Bank, N.A., is a $46 billion bank operating in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. It has 474 branches and more than 800 ATMs. Charter One is a subsidiary of Citizens Financial Group, Inc., a $164 billion commercial bank holding company headquartered in Providence, R.I. Citizens has more than 1,600 branches, approximately 3,200 ATMs and 26,000 employees in a 13-state retail branch network and has non-branch retail and commercial offices in about 40 states. Citizens is the eighth-largest commercial banking company in the United States ranked by deposits and ninth in assets as of March 31, 2006. Citizens is owned by RBS (The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc).The Charter One Web site is charterone.com.
About Coinstar, Inc.
Coinstar, Inc. (Nasdaq:CSTR) is a multi-national company offering a range of 4th Wall™ solutions for the retailers' front of store consisting of self-service coin counting, electronic payment solutions, entertainment services and self-service DVD rental. The company's products and services can be found at more than 60,000 retail locations including supermarkets, drug stores, mass merchants, convenience stores, and restaurants. For more information, visit www.coinstar.com.
Media Contacts
RBS WorldPay
800.200.5965, x. 1210
media@rbsworldpay.us
