MasterCard International's vice-president and Singapore country manager T V Seshadri said the cards were introduced to encourage donation by viewers of the National Kidney Foundation's (NKF) charity shows this month. The card company is a sponsor of the charity event.
Featuring images of local and international artistes lined up to provide entertainment for NHK's two shows this month, the cards provide a commemorative prize for the winner of the live charity events, according to MasterCard.
Each card - there are 12 in the range - carries a stored value of S$5,000 (US$2,700) from issuer Maybank in Singapore. Along with the celebrity visuals, the cards feature an imprint of a Chinese character symbolising the importance of charity and giving. The set of 12 characters forms the phrase, "The acts of charity, love and compassion, pave the path to longevity", penned by renowned writer and poet Chun Yu Fen.
Viewers who call in to make donations during any of the six segments in which artistes perform a song, dance or stunt will be entered into a lucky draw for the commemorative card. Winners are announced during the show.
The first six cards carry images of rock artistes from Taiwan and Hong Kong and the second set of six cards feature images of some of the stunts performed by artistes of local TV station MediaCorp.
MasterCard produced the cards following the success of the celebrity cards it had introduced for the first time at the same charity event last year.
"Last year, three MasterCard prepaid cards were designed, developed and issued for the NKF Charity Show, featuring pictures of (local stars) Zoe Tay, Li Nan Xing and Xie Shio Kuang.
"What we found was that the cards were a strong draw for viewers and motivated thousands more to call in each minute to pledge their support while celebrities were performing their stunts," said Seshadri.
He said MasterCard was looking to introduce specially designed cards at other upcoming events in the region.
