DUBLIN, Sept. 23, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Prepaid and Gift Cards in the U.S., 4th Edition" report to their offering.

http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130307/600769

Driven by the prospect of regulatory intervention and heightened competition, leading prepaid card marketers are beating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to the punch--adding protections found on debit card products, increasing fee transparency, reducing cardholder costs, and experimenting with budgeting and savings tools. As a result, industry revenue generation models are changing, placing greater emphasis on technological innovation and interchange to drive revenue growth.

And in the process, it's no longer about the card itself, as prepaid cards are morphing quickly into portals that connect cardholders to a widening range of financial services. On the heels of these and other developments, Packaged Facts conservatively forecasts general-purpose prepaid card purchase value to grow 17% in 2014. We expect closed-loop prepaid card transaction value to grow at 3.6% as this card segment face challenges related to retail distribution saturation and stagnating consumer usage.

Prepaid and Gift Cards in the U.S., 4th Edition provides industry participants with a wealth of insights to help them navigate this growing but quickly changing market. The report:

• Provides a market size and forecast for the prepaid card market, including trended transaction volume for general use (open-loop) and private label (closed-loop) prepaid cards; trended purchase value, purchase volume and interchange revenue generated by general use prepaid cards; plus a separate market size for gift cards.
• Explores a variety of prepaid card industry challenges and solutions, including revenue generation trend adaption, customer relationship building, and customer differentiation.
• Drawing from proprietary survey results, the report identifies and interprets key prepaid metrics, including cardholder usage costs, monthly spend, monthly purchase, ATM withdrawal, and reload transactions, length of use and intended length of use.
• Identifies the percentage of prepaid cardholders with direct deposit, and then assess the degree that direct deposit influences these above metrics.
• Gauges credit card, debit card, prepaid card and gift card usage trends during 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 by demographic, breaking prepaid card usage down by major association/brand. We also study prepaid, debit and credit card cross-usage trends over time.
• Assesses the relationship between prepaid, debit and credit card usage and consumer loan type usage; and the relationship between prepaid, debit and credit card usage and checking/savings account ownership. In each case, we analyze trends over time, from 2010 to 2014.
• Drawing from proprietary survey results, crafts a gift card market size segmented by gift giving occasion and recipient, providing for gift dollar value estimates for occasion and for recipient, as well as for recipients by occasion and for occasion by recipient. Drawing from the Simmons National Consumer Survey, the report also includes a market size for gift card purchases by retail segment for 2010-2014, with demographic analysis.

Key Topics Covered:

Chapter 1: Executive Summary

Chapter 2: Introduction and Overview

Chapter 3: Market Size and Forecast

Chapter 4: Challenges and Opportunities

Chapter 5: Prepaid Card Cost, Usage Method & Spend Analysis

Chapter 6: Payment Instrument Usage & Cross-Usage Trends

Chapter 7: Prepaid Card Users: Financial Institution Relationship Trends

Chapter 8: Prepaid Card Users and Mobile Payments

Chapter 9: Consumer Gift Card Purchasing Trends

Chapter 10: Top Prepaid Card Brands

Chapter 11: Prepaid Card Marketer & Issuer Strategies

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/bfgz2n/prepaid_and_gift

Media Contact: Laura Wood, +353-1-481-1716, press@researchandmarkets.net

SOURCE Research and Markets