Arab Link provides a comprehensive range of currency exchange and money transfer services for individuals and businesses. A formal Remittance Product Agreement ("RPA") will be developed and executed over the next 30 days. Mint and Arab Link will then begin to offer Money Transfer services to Mint's payroll cardholder base in UAE for sending money home.
Mint payroll cardholders will be able to access money remittance services through Mint ATMs, Mint POS machines, mobile remittance and directly through Arab Link. Beneficiaries of funds will be able to receive funds as cash over-the-counter, credit to their bank account and door-to-door delivery where available.
Nabil Bader, Mint CEO, said today, "Mint recently announced a change of course in respect to our money remittance delivery strategy. This is a very fast moving business with new technologies and service providers entering the space all the time. Mint is a very large customer for any of these providers. Our partnership with Arab Link is a low risk, lower reward strategy than the previously announced acquisition but one we are now more comfortable with following completion of the Arab Link negotiations. Mint and Arab Link have agreed a revenue share arrangement on a per transaction basis."
Chris Hogg, Mint Executive Chairman, said today, "Changing course is part of building a dynamic business model in a very fast growing market. We have to be ready to respond. We are delighted with the potential of this new relationship with Arab Link which enables us to now complete our value added services offering in addition to our existing mobile top up and micro finance business units."
"The UAE remittance market continues to grow and our partnership with Mint is aimed at capturing a sizable share of this market, whilst simplifying the money transfer process, making it more convenient, quicker and less costly for customers," said Rob Groombridge, CEO of Arab Link.
Certain statements in this news release constitute "forward-looking" statements. These statements relate to future events or our future performance. All such statements involve substantial known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results to vary from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including the risk that the Company may not receive all necessary approvals to proceed with those transactions. Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, they should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results, and they will not necessarily be accurate indications of whether or not such results will be achieved. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated due to a number of factors and risks. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of Mint believes are reasonable assumptions on the date of this news release, Mint cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date hereof and Mint disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable securities regulations.
Yesterday, Travis reported on Baltimore Ravens safety Bernard Pollard’s prediction that in 30 years, the National Football League will die because making necessary changes to improve the safety of the game will produce a sport that no one wants to watch. I think both that scenario and the one that Travis himself lays out are not unrealistic. But it’s also worth remembering that the NFL’s life or death won’t happen in a closed surgical theater. There are people other than the players and owners, and in college, the athletics programs and fundraising departments, with a vested interest in keeping football alive and immensely popular.
Significant among those interests? Broadcast television and ESPN. In the week leading up to the Super Bowl, the League is touting the performance of football on television. 55 percent of the television broadcasts since September 1, 2010, that averaged at least 20 million viewers were of NFL football games, or 135 out of 247 broadcasts. The next-closest program? American Idol, with 39 broadcasts, followed by the London Olympics, with 18. The first scripted program on the list is NCIS, with 11 broadcasts that hit 20 million. There’s no wonder broadcast nets pay big for the games they air: Sunday Night Football is part of what’s helped NBC rebound from fourth place to first in the ratings.
Some of that’s an indication of the increasing weakness of broadcast television, which has had a tremendously difficult time launching scripted programming that finds an audience anywhere near that large, and which has seen the numbers on big reality programs, like Idol and Dancing With The Stars decline. But that weakness means the value of football is two-fold. Football broadcasts prop up television’s advertising revenue model. And they provide a potential launching platform for new programming. That’s one of the reasons the Super Bowl rotates from network to network every year: it’s such a critically important platform for showcasing existing programming to one of the largest audiences that assembles in front of the television anymore.
And that’s just on broadcast: football’s even more important to both cable networks and the cable business model. People who oppose cable bundling frequently complain about the price of sports channels, but access to lots and lots of football is one of the reasons sports make cable seem like a good deal for the more than 100 million American households who subscribe to it. The death of football through formal dismantlement or a rising disinterest and distaste would make bundled cable television seem less valuable.
Television, in other words, badly needs the NFL to stay healthy. What that means the industry can, and will, do remains an open question. But football and television’s futures are deeply intertwined, and at a time when the content television is creating for itself is having trouble finding an audience, those ties are tighter than ever.
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