Retailer See Gift Cards Boom As They Stress Reloadability

Closed-loop prepaid cards are growing more slowly than their newer, open-loop cousins, but recent numbers from big payment card processor First Data Corp. show the closed-loop sector still has plenty of life.  First Data’s monthly SpendTrend report for October shows reload dollar volumes on closed-loop cards increased 25.2% from October 2009 and also were up from September’s 20.7% year-over-year growth rate. October’s reload transactions increased 34.4% from a year earlier and were up from September’s 30.4% growth rate.  By dollar volume, reloads at specialty retailers grew 26% in October though redemptions grew only 1.3% and activations 1.4%. With transaction growth generally outpacing dollar-volume growth, closed-loop average tickets are declining.

Published on November 10th, 2010 by Digital Transactions