MasterCard Inc. is getting a big boost from The Travelex Group, a multinational distributor of travel-related prepaid cards. Under a deal announced last week, Travelex will convert its payment card network brand to MasterCard and process card transactions on MasterCard's year-old debit processing platform called Integrated Processing Solutions, or IPS. …

Discover Financial Services this week unveiled a teen-oriented prepaid card called Current by Discover. Current is the latest entrant in a niche that includes the Visa Buxx and Allow MasterCard, prepaid cards that may have garnered more headlines than users. But Discover says its new card has straightforward pricing and …

Banks claim they want to serve so-called underbanked and unbanked consumers, but the fees they slap onto checking accounts, particularly non-sufficient funds (NSF) and overdraft fees, are creating a strong business case for prepaid cards to displace a substantial number of checking accounts, according to a new research report. Using …

In another sign of sweeping changes in the Canadian payment card market, Visa Inc.'s Visa Canada unit last week published interchange rates on its Web site for the first time. The posting comes at a time when merchants are complaining about higher rewards-card acceptance costs and expressing fears that possible …

The dollar value loaded onto so-called network-branded or open-loop prepaid cards grew nearly 45% last year, or nine times the growth rate of closed-loop cards, according to a new report from Mercator Advisory Group. Mercator's fifth annual study of network-branded cards says the public sector is emerging as one of …

ATM surcharges often make the news when they hit a sensitive threshold such as $3, but the flip side of the story is the growth of options banks and credit unions offer customers to avoid paying the fees. According to newly released results from the Pulse electronic funds transfer network's …

The movement by card issuers and government entities to replace check-based benefit payments with prepaid cards entered a new category this week with JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s announcement it will issue a Visa card backed by workers' compensation funds. Unlike unemployment compensation, child-support payments, and other benefits that have backed …

A Miami-based startup says it signed up more than 5,000 cardholders in the first two days its service was commercially available last week in a program that allows consumers to lock in the current price of gasoline by prepaying for fuel. MyGallons LLC, which began its service last Monday after …

Merchants have embraced prepaid cards, particularly their in-store gift cards, but they could get even more value?and profits?from them by focusing less on breakage and anonymity and more on giving customers cards with more utility that keep track of their spending, according to a researcher who tracks the prepaid industry. …

Despite lots of headlines, prepaid cards account for only a small share of payments by underbanked consumers, according to results of a survey released Monday by The Center for Financial Services Innovation, a non-profit affiliate of Chicago-based ShoreBank Corp. The national survey of 2,799 adults age 18 and older and …