Content about Stored-value card

Bentonville, Ark. -- Wal-Mart Stores said Tuesday that it is launching a new service called Rapid Reload, which allows customers to load money onto prepaid cards.

The service is affiliated with Green Dot Network, InComm's Vanilla Reload Network and First Data's Money Network.

For a fee of $3.74, the program allows customers, effective immediately, to add money to their card at a store register.

Englewood, Colo. -- The Western Union Co. and Dollar General Corp. said that they have executed an agreement to begin offering two Western Union general-purpose reloadable prepaid cards at Dollar General’s more than 10,000 stores in 40 states.

Dollar General is now offering the Western Union MoneyWise and co-branded Western Union Telemundo cards.

Austin, Texas -- NetSpend Holdings said Thursday it has entered into a distribution agreement with Family Dollar to sell the NetSpend Visa prepaid debit card at the discounter’s store locations nationwide.

Family Dollar and NetSpend plan to make the prepaid cards available in more than 7,200 locations beginning this month, NetSpend officials said.
 

By Shannon Martin, shannon.martin@onlinemediapartner.com

There are a variety of new technologies that will become available throughout 2012 to small business owners looking for ways to process credit and debit cards. In the past, business have had to rely on costly terminals purchased from merchant account providers who charged not only for the equipment, but also for the processing of the cards used by a business’ customers.

New York City -- American Express announced Tuesday that it has launched Target prepaid cards featuring email and text alerts.

The cards, sold exclusively at Target stores, work like debit cards and can be reloaded with cash, and are usually marketed to lower-income consumers who don't have credit cards or checking accounts. Fees on cards can range widely depending on the issuer.

The growth of gift cards has been nothing less than phenomenal. But while gift cards have come to provide a critical source of earnings, they also face an intensifying regulatory environment, including tax and financial reporting for gift cards, that has become increasingly complex.


By Giles Sutton, J.D., LL.M, giles.sutton@us.gt.com

Gift-card sales have surged in recent years. With electronic or virtual gift cards and mobile applications that allow consumers to purchase and redeem gift cards from their mobile/smartphones, sales only continue to grow. While consumers flock to them for their flexibility, businesses have embraced them as a means to increase sales. Not only are buyers spurred into making new purchases, but they often spend more than the gift-card amount.

Atlanta -- A report released Monday by payment solutions provider First Data Corp. found that year-over-year October dollar volume growth of activations of closed-loop prepaid cards was 2.7%, down from 8.9% year-over-year growth in September.

The First Data SpendTrend Closed-Loop Prepaid Cards analysis tracks U.S. same-merchant activations, redemptions and reloads of merchant-branded prepaid cards, including spending, gift, incentive and promotional cards.

By David S. Almeida, dsalmeida@michaelbest.com

As a previous Chain Store Age guest commentary from May 7, 2010 outlined (available here), the Federal Reserve Board recently issued new federal regulations governing the provision of retail gift cards.