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...

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...

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...

On October 14, 2004, the Payment Cards Center hosted a workshop led by Professor Mark Budnitz of Georgia State University School of Law. Budnitz, the author of four books and many Law Review articles on consumer payments, described how the current regime of consumer payment regulation and...

On August 3, 2006, the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia hosted a workshop led by Ronald Congemi, senior vice president of strategic industry relations for First Data Corporation, to examine developments on both the supply side and demand side that are influencing...

The Center co-sponsored this conference with the Community Affairs Department and the Electronic Funds Transfer Association’s EBT Industry Council. The purpose of the conference was to provide a forum for community, banking, and payment industry leaders on the future of EBT. The sessions...

America’s small businesses have adopted credit cards as both a payment method and a borrowing vehicle. The segment also uses other payment card products, including debit, charge, and prepaid cards. The dollar volume of spending with cards designed for small businesses increased by 230 percent...

Many factors influence credit-card-issuing banks’ decisions about how to fund credit card loans. These factors include the size and structure of the institution, economic conditions, and the regulatory environment. Against the backdrop of a much smaller market for credit card asset-backed...