TowerGroup: Gift Cards Approaching $100B Mark in $2 trillion Prepaid Cards Industry
Gift cards, which find their roots in the
prepaid card product, have sustained growth better than 20% for the past
three years. Consumer gift cards, the hottest gift item of the 2006
holiday season, are in the hands of more than half the consumers in the
United States.
Prepaid cards as an industry now includes vertical markets such as gift cards, government benefit cards, employee payroll cards, business travel cards, and customer reward cards - a global transaction market with spend potential above $2 trillion.
A new TowerGroup report titled, "Gift Cards: How to Ensure they Don't become Drift Cards," segments the consumer vulnerabilities into three groups: consumer, merchant and fraud. The report illustrates areas in which the product can expose the consumer to receiving less than the full value of their card.
More details at TowerGroup.
