In 1978, The Advantage Network was born with a strategy to penetrate the retail market by deploying five ATM machines. The card name of Advantage was selected and registered in five states. The bright orange plastic card was introduced to customers in 1979.
A new philosophy was surfacing with respect to ATM deployment and usage. Installing ATM's off premise and financial institution sharing was introduced domestically. The Advantage Network adopted the off-premise philosophy immediately. Nationally, only 4 percent of ATM installations were off premise. This strategy proved to be successful for The Advantage Network in two ways. First, ATM transaction volume increased substantially and secondly, it provided an impetus to support financial institution sharing.
The Advantage Network began sharing with seven other financial institutions in April, 1981. Twenty-five financial institutions were part of The Advantage Network by 1984. The Advantage Network remained within the boundaries of South Dakota until 1985. In 1988, Advantage joined CIRRUS, a national delivery network. CIRRUS provides ATM services through hundreds of thousands of ATM's nationwide.
In 1994, The Advantage Checkcard was introduced adding an electronic payment solution. The sharing decision was made to provide EFT/ATM/POS services to independently owned and operated financial institutions in South Dakota and the surrounding area. By the end of 1995, The Advantage Network had 33 member institutions with the Checkcard and processed 250,841 POS transactions. By 2003, the network had increased the Checkcard member banks to 65 and processed 5,154,628 POS transactions.
The Advantage card is convenient, fast and secure. Learn more by downloading our brochure.
