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With a little more marketing oomph behind it, the gift card market rebounded in 2014 after a down year in 2013, according to a report released Wednesday by Mercator Advisory Group. Virtual gift cards, a small but key segment of the market, held their own and may soon benefit from …
Read More »Green Dot Forges a ‘More Certain Path Forward’ With Five-Year Wal-Mart MoneyCard Deal
Green Dot Corp. late Monday removed a big source of uncertainty about its near-term future by announcing a five-year renewal of its contract with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to be both program manager and issuer of the Wal-Mart MoneyCard prepaid product. But while the deal secures a major source of revenue …
Read More »JetPay And Rezzcard Team up to Tap Affordable-Housing Rent With a Prepaid Card
Rezzcard, a provider of payments services for tenants in affordable housing, has teamed with processor JetPay Corp. to offer a Visa-branded prepaid card, called the MAC card, as well as a mobile app, to tenants living in public, Section 8, tax-credit-subsidized, and workforce-housing developments. The Rezzcard app enables users to …
Read More »COMMENTARY: For Some Banks, Prepaid Cards Aren’t Worth New Regulatory Compliance Costs
By Paul Schaus Considering new regulations on general-purpose prepaid cards, is it worth it for banks to still be in the business? The answer is: Maybe not. If banks have enough customers who are underbanked or unbanked, as well people just on a tight budget clamoring for prepaid cards, prepaid …
Read More »Green Dot Struggles With MoneyPak Closure but Reduces Reliance on Wal-Mart
Prepaid card issuer and services provider Green Dot Corp. lost considerable reload volume and revenues in the first quarter because of the discontinuance of its popular MoneyPak product, but the company late Thursday said its core businesses demonstrated good organic growth and recent acquisitions gave a big boost to the …
Read More »Eye on Prepaid: Fees Vary Widely, and Millennials More Apt To Favor Prepaid Cards
Prepaid cards may find favor among younger consumers, one survey finds, while another reports prepaid card programs sport a wide range of fees. Also, armored-car company Brink’s has jumped into the prepaid card mix. Fees on 31 prepaid card programs surveyed by Bankrate.com are scattershot, with the types and amounts …
Read More »Short MoneyCard Contract Extension With Wal-Mart Casts a Shadow Over Green Dot
Green Dot Corp.’s stock fell 8% Tuesday morning after the prepaid card services provider reported Monday that it had extended its agreement with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to issue and manage the Walmart MoneyCard only until Dec. 31, 2015. In the view of investors, the short extension of a five-year agreement …
Read More »As Merchants Add Digital Goods, They Must Adapt Their Anti-Fraud Efforts, Expert Warns
Digital goods have matured way past ringtones for a mobile phone. And with that, merchants need to adapt their anti-fraud measures, suggests LexisNexis, a Dayton, Ohio-based risk-services company. Today’s consumers are completely comfortable buying books, movies, and apps for the smart phones, tablets, and computers, Aaron Press, LexisNexis Risk Solutions …
Read More »With Holiday Gift Card Sales Wilting, Issuers Will Have to Push Harder, Add Digital
The earliest known example of a closed-loop gift card was offered during the Christmas holiday season in 1916 by Hampton’s Quality Store in Eugene, Ore. The store advertised a “Christmas Glove Gift Card” that could be given to a lady, allowing her to redeem it for the gloves she wanted. …
Read More »Gift Card Sales To Surpass $124 Billion in 2014
Gift cards sales in 2014 will top $124 billion in the United States, but that comes amid slowing growth, says a new report from CEB TowerGroup. The Arlington, Va.-based advisory firm predicts that gift card sales will see annual growth rates from 5% to 6% through 2017, an indication …
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