Steward Bank introduces another promo as the prepaid Visa/MasterCard wars heat up

Steward Bank has just fired another shot as the prepaid Visa and MasterCard war among banks continues to heat up. A few weeks ago we learnt of their competition where you could win as much as US$3 000 if you spend at least US$20 using your Steward Visa Globetrotter prepaid card. Now they have just introduced another promotion involving the same card promising prizes totalling US$5 000.

Just like before the promotion centres around trying to make you spend money using your card. This time you stand a chance to win if you use your card to pay for either Netflix or DStv. This is all very strategic from Steward and indeed the other banks. They want you to be familiar with the ways in which you can use their cards. The hope is that after each promotion ends, not only will people have spend enough money allowing the bank to recoup what they spent on prizes but people will be also now familiar with the many ways they can use prepaid cards.

For this I applaud them. I am still shocked to this day by the number of people I see lining up at various DStv “agent” locations in order to pay for their monthly subscriptions. Most agents charge exorbitant fees of as much as $5 in order to complete these payments on behalf of their clients. Most people could save themselves a lot of money if they get a prepaid card and pay online.

In case you are not familiar with the process of paying DStv using a prepaid card you just need to follow these steps:

• Get a prepaid card such as the Steward Visa card. You are free to get a card of your choice here including Ecobank’s prepaid Visa, BancABC’s prepaid Visa or if you must FBC’s prepaid MasterCard. Of course if you want to stand a chance of winning a prize with Steward you would have to get and use their prepaid card.
• Visit the DSTV website and check the price of your package. https://www.dstvafrica.com/en-zw/browse-compare-packages
• Preload your prepaid card with the amount you want to pay plus an appropriate amount to cover the payment fees. For Steward you should add US$2 for all packages, for BancABC you should add $2 and for FBC you should at 3% plus $3-yes FBC is pricey.
• Visit the DSTV self-service page here.
• Enter your mobile number or surname and then your smartcard number to login.
• Select pay and follow the instructions. You will eventually be asked to enter your card number then OTP to complete the payment.

NB. Payments are instantly captured and if you had been disconnected you can use Self-Service to restore service instantly. You just need the decoder to be on to clear the famous E-16 error! You don’t need an agent to do these things for you and charge you lots of money.