Recently enacted federal legislation contains a number of provisions that will affect the prepaid card industry. This note highlights some of these provisions, discusses how they might shape the prepaid card industry, and outlines the debate over whether prepaid cards should be defined as...

Despite a statutory definition of identity theft, there is a continuing debate on whether differences among the financial frauds associated with identity theft warrant further distinction and treatment, not only by lenders and financial institutions but also by consumers and regulatory and law...

Over the past decade many of the nation's largest public transit providers have gone from fare-payment systems based on cash and coin to more modern electronic systems that implement payment cards, including agency-issued prepaid cards, credit cards, and debit cards. On September 16, 2008, the...

For two decades, Visa Inc. has contracted with a market research firm to gather detailed information from U.S. consumers about the forms of payment they use when carrying out transactions at many types of merchants. This omnibus project, the Visa Payment Panel Study, has recorded the migration...

Consumer confidence in payment card systems has been built up over many decades. Cardholders expect to use their cards to execute payment instructions in a reliable and timely manner. Data breaches that degrade the perceived safety and reliability of payment cards may weaken consumer confidence...

On April 23 and 24, 2008, the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and the Electronic Funds Transfer Association jointly hosted "Maintaining a Safe Environment for Payment Cards: Examining Evolving Threats Posed by Fraud." The conference included panels representing...