Prepaid Cards

It was a lousy December for payment stocks, but 2015 as a whole saw shares of electronic transaction processors far outperform the major market indexes, according to a new report from Chicago-based investment firm Barrington Research Associates Inc. Shares of 28 payments companies posted a mean return of 11.47% last …

Open-loop financial-services prepaid cards will be one of the fastest-growing segments for prepaid over the next two years, forecasts the “12th Annual U.S. Prepaid Cards Market Forecasts, 2015-2018,” recently released by Mercator Advisory Group Inc. The report, which gauges the growth potential of both open-loop and closed-loop prepaid cards, also …

By John Stewart Market signals may be mixed, but on balance the 2015 holiday season will be a merry one for plastic and digital gift cards, according to Mercator Advisory Group. The Maynard, Mass.-based research firm’s annual forecast for November and December estimates loads on closed-loop U.S. gift cards will …

Plastic gift cards remain king, but consumer awareness of mobile and electronic gift cards is increasing. That’s one result from the Retail Gift Card Association’s survey about gift card use. The survey canvassed more than 1,000 consumers. In the survey, fully 49.7% said they understand how to redeem a mobile …

By John Stewart As the holidays approach, retailers and banks can expect to sell more electronic gift cards than ever, if research released Monday by Bankrate.com is any indication. The survey, which covers 60 general-purpose and proprietary gift cards, shows two-thirds are available as e-cards, up from 59% last year. …

Prepaid card issuer and services provider Green Dot Corp. on Thursday said it is over the hump of business lost when it closed its popular MoneyPak reload product early this year. MoneyPak was a long-established product that Pasadena, Calif.-based Green Dot sold in stores to enable the reloading of prepaid …

UniRush LLC’s RushCard declared a four-month fee holiday over the weekend after a glitch during the prepaid card’s switch to a new processor that began Oct. 11 limited access to an undisclosed but apparently large number of customers’ accounts. Cincinnati-based UniRush did not identify the processor. The glitch apparently started …

Heeding a call among businesses for faster and cheaper payments, payments provider Payment Data Systems Inc. has released the Stream general-purpose reloadable (GPR) prepaid card to make it easier for companies to send funds, like commissions or rewards, to contractors or customers. The card, which bears a MasterCard Inc. brand, …

By John Stewart When Nikki Baird and Steve Rowen evaluated retailers’ digital gift cards this year, the thing that surprised them the most was how disjointed the shopper experience is. Card sales that worked just fine at a merchant’s desktop site just didn’t translate well to a mobile device, for …

Electronic gift cards are becoming more popular with consumers, and potentially creating more sales at retailers, finds a new survey from Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc. That will likely mean competition for consumers will heat up as merchants and processors look to cash in. Mercator Advisory Group, which follows the gift …