British network O2 is dipping its toes into the world of finance with the launch of pre-paid payment cards. In conjunction with Natwest O2 will offer two pre-paid VISA cards, ‘Load and Go’ and ‘Cash Manager’. The cards will only be available to O2 customers and O2 will send you text updates whenever they are used so you can keep track of your spending. Cash Manager works essentially the same as a debit card from a bank in that it can pretty much be used for anything, you just fire some money onto it and away you go.

Load and Go on the other hand is aimed at children and can’t be used for naughty things like online gambling. At the moment the ETA for both cards is August. The launch of these cards will mark another departure from being a purely mobile network given O2’s existing Joggler offering. Joggler acts as something of a family planner come media/picture viewer and sees O2 making forays into non-mobile markets.