PIF research has revealed that the frequency of spend on consumer loaded cards has nearly doubled and that year-on-year average load values have grown nearly three times. It also noted that Polymath Consulting analysis reveals the number of consumer loaded prepaid card programmes has grown significantly in the past four years, from just 50 in 2007 to 229 in 2011. The PIF Data Aggregation Service was launched in the UK in 2008 and data is collected from prepaid card programme managers (including banks) as well as BIN sponsoring banks. Data collected represents between 50 and 75 percent of the UK prepaid card market. In order to fully analyse industry developments the data is broken down into four categories; government/corporate loaded schemes; consumer purchased non-reloadable/gift schemes; FX/travel/currency cards and consumer loaded cards.
Other highlights of the Q4, 2011 research include:
- In the area of consumer purchased non-reloadable cards the average spend per transaction increased by some 20% between Q3 and Q4
- In looking at FX/travel currency cards, average spend per transaction had increased by around 50% in the previous year, but this fell somewhat in the third quarter and remained flat in Q4
- Open loop government and corporate cards are used once every two to three weeks on average