Revolution Money

Revolution Money was an American financial services company founded in 2005 in St. Petersburg, Florida, by Jason J. Hogg. Initially operating as GratisCard Inc., the company launched publicly in 2007 with a mission to disrupt the payments industry through a proprietary PIN-based payment system that charged merchants only 0.5% per transaction — significantly below the industry average of 2–2.5%. Its core products included the RevolutionCard (a PIN-based prepaid debit card with no printed account number), and Revolution MoneyExchange, a fee-free peer-to-peer transfer service integrated with AOL's AIM instant messenger. Backed by Revolution LLC (Steve Case), Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Deutsche Bank, the company grew to over 400,000 customers before being acquired by American Express in November 2009 for approximately $300 million.