All articles by Verdict Staff
Verdict Staff
Meta pushes forward in prepaid
Largely absent from the prepaid card market, multinational banks have left the industry dominated by smaller issuers Brad Henson, president of Meta Payment Systems, speaks to CIs John Hill about what this could mean for the future and his view of where prepaid is headedMeta Payment Systems (MPS) is one of the largest prepaid card players in the US, although most would not have guessed it A division of the Storm Lake, Iowa bank MetaBank, MPS operates primarily as a sponsor for other card programmes, and is involved to varying extents with around 2,300 different prepaid products
Asia-Pacific round-up
Loyalty programmesBarclays India launches new reward schemeBarclays Bank in India has announced it is to team up with credit card and payment solutions provider ElectraCard Services to launch a new loyalty system The new platform means that Barclays customers can now benefit from various loyalty programmes and receive rewards across multiple banking channels.Barclays Reward Points programme is a loyalty plan where customers are incentivised to use alternative channels of the bank These loyalty points are earned for transactions done on Barclays debit cards, mobile banking, internet banking and ATMs and for registration and activation on various banking channels.Ramesh Mengawade, CEO of ElectraCard Services, said: In a dynamic business environment like todays, customer expectations are to be met before they realise it themselves
Merchant acquiring for beginners
Merchant acquirers tend to be, though are not always, banks.The merchant acquiring market for UK card payments involves four key groups: merchants, acquirers, card issuers and cardholders.An effective merchant acquiring service speeds up secure transactions and opens multi-channel purchasing to a wider customer base by enabling payments to be accepted over the telephone, on the internet as well as face-to-face.Merchant acquiring also enables businesses to automatically transfer funds, helps to protect them against fraud by recognising stolen or invalid cards and reduces the amount of cash they handle, which has obvious security benefits.Acquirers levy a merchant service charge (MSC) on card transactions that varies according to: the card scheme such as Visa, MasterCard and American Express; card type, for example debit, charge or credit; and transaction type, such as chip and PIN; as well as other factors
Europe, Middle East, Africa round-up
Prepaid cardsTransCash, TSYS launch prepaid money transfer cardGlobal payment processor TSYS has signed an agreement with TransCash, a US money transfer specialist, to launch a prepaid money transfer card The prepaid card will initially be launched in France during the third quarter of 2009 and will be sold by Midi France Telecom.TransCash is extending its successful US business model to Europe by offering consumers the ability to purchase prepaid cards to make international transfers
MasterCard targets Hispanic segment
Prepaid cards and underbanked consumers would seem to be a natural fit, but many consumer segments, such as the Hispanic segment in the US, have yet to be convinced about the benefits of prepaid cards MasterCard is launching a targeted Hispanic marketing and financial literacy campaign promoting the use of its debit and prepaid products in the US
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Latin America round-up
Prepaid cardsEPAY launches prepaid card programmePanama-based payment service provider EPAY has launched a prepaid card service allowing companies around the world to conduct business transactions using prepaid cards with no foreign exchange conversion fees
News Digest
Facing a particularly tough task is Consumer Portfolio Services (CPS), a US company providing vehicle financing to subprime borrowers which saw its bad debt write-offs soar by almost 50 percent in 2008.Western Union and communications technology specialist VeriSigns Messaging and Mobile Media Division have come to CPS assistance with a solution that enables CPS customers to trigger their monthly car payment directly from their mobile phone To use the service, CPS customers enrol online or by phone and provide their CPS account number, mobile phone number and debit account information
Region round-up
Product launchStandard Chartered launches JustOne card in Asia-PacificFinancial services provider Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia has announced the launch of the JustOne card, a product targeted at consumers under 30 which offers users a current account to which a combined credit, debit and ATM card is attached.The bank has said that the card will help it expand its market share from five to seven percent over the next 24 months, while it expects the card alone to bring in 50,000 new cardholders within the next 12 months, adding to the 500,000 cardholders it currently has.The card is available to those with an income of MYR40,000 ($11,000) a year
US card issuers expect further charge-offs
Rising US unemployment levels are fuelling an increase in card delinquencies and charge-off rates, but there are a few glimmers of hope on the horizon, as Charles Davis reports.A US cards industry desperate for some good news instead received several more body blows in recent days, with steep losses from swelling delinquencies fuelling record charge-off rates.The sense of pessimism was underscored when the Federal Reserve reported that consumer credit plunged in March at the fastest pace in 18 years, falling by $11.1 billion the largest dollar amount on record dating to 1943.Global credit ratings agency Moodys Investors Service then reported that its prime credit card charge-off rate index through the end of March rose 50 basis points from the previous month, to a record high 9.3 percent of outstanding receivables The delinquency rate index for credit card accounts more than 30 days late also set a new record of 6.4 percent, its highest point since peaking at 6.28 percent in December 1990, Moodys said.Charge-offs set to peak in 2010Moodys also revised its prediction for where the average credit card charge-off rate will peak, saying that it now expects charge-offs to peak at 12 percent in the first half of 2010, a huge jump from its original forecast of 10.5 percent
Iceland’s big payment freeze
Despite having one of the highest payment card penetration rates in Europe and an internet-savvy population, Icelands payment players would appear to be in hibernation mode at least until the countrys economy recovers from the kicking it received in October 2008, as Victoria Conroy reports.After all that has happened to Icelands economy over the past year, is there any hope for card players in the country, or has the payment industry been frozen in time Although Icelands economy makes for a gloomy backdrop, the lack of a domestic payment scheme has given Visa and MasterCard a space in which to grow, and card numbers continue to rise even as spending is being hammered.Until Icelands economy gets back on its feet from the kicking it received in October 2008, it is to be expected that there will be a distinct inertia in the countrys payment industry until new bank reorganisations and ownership structures settle into place