Juli Spottiswood today became the first woman to sit on Cardtronics Inc.'s board of directors, and the history-making appointment also brings the independent ATM deployer (IAD) expertise in network-branded prepaid cards, an area where the company sees a lot of potential.

Spottiswood will serve on the company's board until 2012 when she is up for re-election for a three-year term. She is president and CEO of Parago Inc., a Lewisville, Texas-based marketing service company that develops prepaid card solutions to solidify consumer relationships and drive increased sales for clients. Spottiswood also is a board member and treasurer of the Network Branded Prepaid Card Association, a non-profit association that promotes the use of prepaid cards.

In its March 3 annual report filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, executives of  Cardtronics predict an increase in consumer use of stored-value prepaid cards and that deployment of the company's ATMs and financial kiosks in convenient retail locations will provide an effective way for prepaid cardholders to access cash and other financial services.

"We have seen a proliferation in the issuance and acceptance of stored-value prepaid debit cards as a means for consumers to access their cash and make routine retail purchases," Cardtronics officials wrote. "Based on published studies, the value loaded on stored-value prepaid cards such as open-loop network-branded money and financial-services cards, payroll cards, social security cards and unemployment-benefit cards, is expected to increase threefold in the next four to five years."

Cardtronics officials added, "While it is difficult to measure the precise number of cash withdrawal transactions occurring from stored-value cards on our network, we believe that such numbers increased significantly over the last couple of years and represented a significant portion of the year-over-year withdrawal transaction count gains that we saw in the United States."

Cardtronics has signed an exclusive agreement providing Prepaid MasterCard issuers and program managers an opportunity to expand their ATM footprint through Cardtronics' Allpoint surcharge-free ATM network.

In addition, the company signed an agreement with Univision, the Spanish-language television network based in Doral, Fla. Univision MasterCard prepaid cardholders have surcharge-free access to the Allpoint Network. Cardtronics also provides surcharge-free ATM access through Allpoint for Intuit Refund and Intuit Pay cardholders. Allpoint, which is based in Bethesda, Md., operates more than 37,000 ATMs nationwide.

Spottiswood brings a younger voice to the board.

"Spottiswood complements our board members who are in the later stages of their careers," a Cardtronics spokesperson said. "The board and executive leadership team at Cardtronics looks forward to Juli helping the company enhance its ability to influence where people go to get cash while simultaneously transforming that behavior into brand loyalty for our retail and financial institution partners."

Spottiswood joins seven others on the Cardtronics' board. Company officials also announced that Michael A.R. Wilson, managing director of TA Associates, and a Cardtronics director since 2005 has resigned from the board. TA Associates had been a major investor in Cardtronics, but the London-based private equity firm sold the vast majority of its investment last year.

Cardtronics is the nation's largest non-bank owner of ATMs with more than 33,200 machines in the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the Caribbean.