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...

Start-up firm PayPerks has developed a financial capability and rewards platform that combines online education with sweepstakes-based incentives. PayPerks’ initial emphasis has been on improving the understanding and use of prepaid cards among individuals with little prior experience using...

The U.S. General Services Administration’s SmartPay program is the world’s largest commercial card portfolio. Nearly every state uses payment cards to electronically distribute unemployment insurance, child support, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, or other funds. Federal, state, and...

Banks supply payment services that underpin the smooth operation of the economy. To ensure an efficient payment system, it is important to maintain competition among payment service providers, but data available to gauge the degree of competition are quite limited. We propose and implement a...

The goal of this paper is to provide a framework to analyze the effectiveness of bank coalition formation in response to an external aggregate shock that may cause disruption to the payment mechanism and real economic activity. I show that the kind of insurance mechanism provided by a specific...

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...

The U.S. General Services Administration’s SmartPay program is the world’s largest commercial card portfolio. Nearly every state uses payment cards to electronically distribute unemployment insurance, child support, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, or other funds. Federal, state, and...

The Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and the Center for Financial Services Innovation conducted this research project using transaction-level data provided by Meta Payment Systems in an effort to develop a better understanding of how consumers use prepaid cards by...

Today, prepaid cards are used in dozens of payment applications. To examine the most recent developments, the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia hosted a workshop on August 22, 2011. Leading the workshop was Tim Walsh, president and chief executive officer of Ready...

The authors estimate the cost savings to the U.S. payment system resulting from implementing Check 21. This legislation initially permitted a paper substitute digital image of a check, and later an electronic digital image of a check, to be processed and presented for payment on a same-day...