Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
With issuers and program managers having come under fire in recent months for allegedly high and numerous consumer fees for prepaid products, American Express Co. on Tuesday launched a reloadable prepaid card that levies no activation or maintenance fees. It also charges no reload fee when value is loaded …
Read More »Visa Announces Deal with Monitise for Mobile Service Tied to Debit, Prepaid
Visa Inc. on Thursday cemented into place two more pieces of a developing strategy for what is rapidly turning into a hotly competitive market for mobile payments. The world’s largest card network announced it had struck an agreement with Monitise PLC, a U.K.-based provider of mobile services for financial …
Read More »EBillme Takes a Dive into the E-Gift Card Pool
ModaSolutions Corp.’s eBillme bills itself as the cash-based way to pay for online purchases, but the company has put a new twist on its services: electronic gift cards. EBillme this week added a dozen new brands to the approximately 50 merchant brands it was already offering online. “We’d like to …
Read More »How Banks, Spurred by Regulation, Are Eyeing Prepaid Products
Banks are likely to become much more active as issuers of reloadable prepaid cards in response to new regulations that are making traditional bank accounts more expensive for consumers, according to a new report from Javelin Strategy & Research. “There’s an opportunity for banks to use prepaid as an account-replacement …
Read More »Help Wanted: Wizards in Prepaid Card Marketing and Branding
Regulatory pressures, the public’s lack of awareness of prepaid cards, and negative publicity from consumer groups and the media are weighing on prepaid card executives’ minds, according to new findings from Aite Group LLC. Researchers from Boston-based Aite polled 24 senior executives during March’s Prepaid Expo USA conference in Orlando, …
Read More »3 Million Transactions And Counting: Starbucks Scores Early Mobile Success
Mobile payments may be a nascent business fraught with uncertainty, but Starbucks Coffee Co. seems to have found a key to success. Last week, the company revealed that more than 3 million transactions have taken place on its smart-phone-based prepaid payments system, which became available in all U.S. company-owned stores …
Read More »AmEx Serves Up a New Digital Payment System with a Prepaid Card
American Express Co. on Monday launched Serve, a multifaceted online and offline payment system centered on a digital account and reloadable prepaid card that facilitate person-to-person payments as well as physical, online, and mobile purchases. AmEx says a key advantage of the digital account is that it is funding-agnostic, meaning …
Read More »How Prepaid Cards Could Help Issuers Recover Some Income Lost to Durbin
As debit card issuers move to impose new fees or trim back rewards in response to looming federal restrictions on interchange income, they may be ignoring an opportunity to recover as much as half of that interchange without levying a single new fee. That’s according to research released this week …
Read More »Merchants Willing To Leave Plastic Behind As They Expand Prepaid Offerings
Retailers, other merchants, and processors are increasingly embracing online and mobile forms of gift cards and related prepaid products as they seek to give customers as many payment options as possible, according to executives who spoke at this week’s Prepaid Expo USA in Orlando, Fla. “If you’re not in …
Read More »Fiserv Deals Propel It Deeper into Mobile Products And Prepaid
Banking processor Fiserv Inc. announced a trio of acquisitions in a 24-hour period that included picking up Atlanta-based mobile-banking technology provider Mobile Commerce Ltd., known as M-Com. Brookfield, Wis.-based Fiserv also announced it is acquiring Maverick Network Solutions Inc., a Wilmington, Del.-based prepaid card processor, and Credit Union On-Line Inc., …
Read More »