Overview
Seventh Annual Open Loop Prepaid Market Assessment
"As Mercator expected would happen, open-loop cards are becoming the preferred payment option in some segments, though at a faster rate than we initially thought," Sloane says. The Seventh Annual Open-Loop Prepaid Market Assessment is the first of our annual trilogy of closely followed prepaid benchmark reports (Open-Loop, Closed-Loop, and Prepaid Market Forecast) that provides a thorough analysis and documentation of the growth and development of the Prepaid Industry. It benchmarks the load, growth, and market dynamics for all Open-Loop Prepaid Solutions. This includes a review of the dollars loaded on Open-Loop Prepaid products in 18 different market segments.
Highlights of the Report Include:
The total load for all 26 prepaid segments in 2009 (Open & Closed) was $330.03 billion, a $60.74 billion increase over the $269.29 billion loaded in 2008 - an increase of 23 percent.Open-Loop products had $124.64 billion loaded in 2009, an increase of 61 percent.Based on new information reported this year, Mercator has found the size of the General Purpose Reloadable Market to be bigger than it previously reported. We have adjusted our forecasts and historical data to reflect this new information.Open-Loop cards continue to take market share from Closed-Loop cards. For example, in the consumer incentives segment, open-loop card load grew at 37 percent, while closed-loop card load declined 8 percent.Some of the fastest growing sectors were government benefits sectors driven by changing demographics and the poor economy.The dollars loaded in the Social Security Segment grew by 197 percent and the dollars loaded onto cards for state unemployment plans grew by 292 percent, which reflects job losses and persistent unemployment.
One of 12 exhibits in this report:
There are 27 pages and 12 exhibits in this report.
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About Mercator Advisory Group:
Mercator Advisory Group is the leading, independent research and advisory services firm exclusively focused on the payments and banking industries. We deliver pragmatic and timely research and advice designed to help our clients uncover the most lucrative opportunities to maximize revenue growth and contain costs. Our clients range from the world's largest payment issuers, acquirers, processors, merchants and associations to leading technology providers and investors.
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