May 2, 2007

NEWS: MC Europe Ready for Prepaid Boom

Recently, MasterCard Europe published a brief informative guide to prepaid debit cards for consumption by U.K. card customers. The intention of the literature is to help British consumers understand the purpose and potential uses of prepaid cards, with recommendations as to when to use them. The guide covers a brief history of the usage of prepaid cards, and an explanation of how the specialized plastic works. MasterCard also prepared a list of Frequently Asked Questions and answers. The brochure is meant to be distributed by individual issuers to new consumers, according to MC Europe.

MasterCard is anticipated a real prepaid boom in Europe. Already, the company reports approving some 250 unique prepaid cards in fourteen European countries. They are backing their expectations with a data report from PSE Consulting, which forecasts that European consumers will be touting 360 million prepaid cards by 2010. PSE expects that a total of 2.3 billion prepaid card transactions will be made annually by the same deadline, which boils down to 5 percent of total annual card transaction volumes and 3 percent of total annual card spending.

PSE states confidently that the European prepaid card market can be expected to experience annual growth rates of 110 percent over the next half-decade. Its research was sponsored by MasterCard, UK ATM network operator Link Interchange Network, and First Data International.


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