All over the country sports clubs face the problem of identifying members, checking their privileges, and tracking their activity. Whether it’s a swim and tennis club, a golf club, a yacht club, or any similar organization, providing members with an easy way to gain access to facilities and services is at the core of the club’s mission.
InstantCard has provided membership cards to many, many sporting clubs throughout its 15-year history. Many of these membership cards have photos, and all are printed on PVC plastic to provide a high quality, long-lasting solution to club member identification. Often these professional club cards use an auto-id technology like barcodes, magstripe, or RFID to automatically gain access to physical facilities on-site.
Many clubs have asked us if we have a solution for tracking member activity and/or purchases, such as food and drink, vending machines, checking out equipment like golf carts, or clubhouse purchases. NFC (Near Field Communications) offers a perfect technology to allow secure tracking of these transactions. NFC is the technology used in payment cards (like Apple Pay or Visa Tap to Pay), and allows the cards to be read by any smartphone. InstantCard offers a full range of NFC-compatible cards to its clients.
InstantCard has partnered with a specialist in NFC payments technology, www.mywristcoin.com. WristCoin is able to implement a wide variety of tracking and payment services, all enabled by secure NFC membership cards. WristCoin provides a store-of-value capability, allowing gym members to top up their account, and make purchases by simply swiping their membership ID card. Members love the simplicity of this membership card system, and club managers love the security and accountability.
The many benefits include:
- Easy, cashless payments for members
- Secure transaction management system for clubs
- Ability to implement customized privileges for each club member category
- Detailed accounting and tracking which cash cannot offer
- Simple, familiar phone-based payment terminals, minimizing equipment costs
Nearly all of our club clients have told us they would love to achieve the benefits of NFC transactions from a new membership card system. But they are hesitant to take the plunge before fully testing it themselves. Fortunately, most clubs have an easy way to trial this exciting new technology. Since sports clubs often host events (swim meets, golf tournaments, sailing regattas, etc), they can simply implement the cashless technology at their next event. There are many advantages for event organizers and participants, similar to the advantages for year-round operations. And systematically, event revenues rise while the cost of operations fall.
WristCoin, in partnership with InstantCard, can provide a turn-key membership card system solution for any event, which will allow club management to see first-hand how this technology works, and determine where it makes sense in their operations.
If your club would be interested in discussing how cashless payments might fit into their membership ID card program, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected]!