May 20, 2010
I just came across an interesting article about the Prepaid Card Market. While I have heard it said time and time again that ‘prepaid cards are the fastest growing payment card segment’, until now I hadn’t seen the study or statistics to back it. Mercator’s Advisory Group just released their Global Prepaid Card Market Potential Ranking 2010. The analysis ranks the top 50 of the world’s economies based on their existing financial services.
Some of the highlights include:
In 2008, the top 30 markets in the world represent US$762.2 billion market opportunities for prepaid cards across six major segments, compared to the actual load of US$209.1 billion in the U.S. in 2008.
In these markets, government represents the largest segment with a total of US$425.3 billion opportunities, along with store gift cards (US$164.5 billion), Open/GPR cards (US$59.6 billion), payroll cards (US$51.8 billion), incentive cards (US$42.4 billion), and campus cards (US$18.6 billion).
Outside of U.S., Germany, Italy, France, U.K., and Spain are the world’s most promising markets for prepaid cards, combined to represent US$405.9 billion opportunities.
With so much potential, it sounds like the prepaid market still has plenty of room to grow!
What do you think? Will the market ever reach its potential? Why are there so few statistics out there outlining this type of information? If you have other examples of these reports, please feel free to pass them along!
To view the original article: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/05/prweb4007304.htm
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Uncategorized by Kelly
April 26, 2010
There’s been a lot of buzz lately about the new Gift Card Act (Title IV of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009) as well as the newly published final version of the Gift Card Rules. The documents relating to this legislation are lengthy, and let’s face it; nobody has the time (or desire) to read through them all! I wanted to write a summary of sorts for everyone, hopefully providing an easy to understand reference.
The Gift Card Act is comprised of three primary prohibitions:
- Certain fees are prohibited from being charged to the Gift Card unless specific conditions are met.
- Expiration dates on the funds are prohibited unless specific conditions are met.
- It requires additional disclosures to the cardholder within the collateral material (terms and conditions, privacy statements, etc.).
From reading the three points above it sounds pretty simple, right? Not so fast! Those ‘conditions’ that are mentioned completely change how a card program can function.
First, we need to understand that the legislation makes a clear distinction between Gift Cards and Loyalty, Award and Promotional Cards (LAP Cards). Because LAP Cards are generally not funded by the consumer, but rather an employer, merchant or other corporate entity they are excluded from many of the parameters described above.
The Gift Card Rules do state that LAP Cards must:
- State that they are issued for Loyalty, Award or Promotions.
- State the date of funds expiration.
- Disclose a toll-free telephone number and website for which cardholders can use to see any fees associated with the card.
So what changes for your incentive program? The short answer is, not much! 1to1 is working behind the scenes to change some collateral materials. We need to ensure that the incentive cards are not being marketed in a way where they could be construed as gift cards. So, you may see some changes to things like cardholder URLs or thermal printing on the front of stock cards. The other guidelines are already being followed!
If you have any questions regarding the Gift Card Act or Rules, please call 630-754-4800.
This document is meant for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a source of legal advice. For legal advice, please contact an attorney.
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1to1 Card by Kelly
