Call it the Year of the Prepaid Card. It is estimated that prepaid purchase volume will top $150 billion this year and is expected to grow $45 billion over the next five years, according to Javelin Research & Strategy. Between 2009 and 2012 consumer use of prepaid cards grew 71%. So what is driving all this...
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American Express updated the look and feel of its iPhone and iPad apps last Friday. The updated apps surface more account information and gather offers, rewards, and member benefits in one place. The iPhone app is now on version 4.0.0. and the iPad version is 4.0. The Android app is on version 3.0 and was last updated...
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Last week, the banking industry raised an eyebrow as Bluebird rolled out a series of changes for its prepaid cardholders, including FDIC insurance, check writing, and a higher maximum balance of $100,000. The obvious (and probably correct) conclusion reached by many was that the American Express/Walmart backed operation was trying to become more like...
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Bluebird added checks and FDIC insurance this week, meaning the joint venture from Walmart and American Express now offers just about everything a checking account offers, and matches the offering of its rival Green Dot‘s Go Bank. Bank Innovation reported in January that Bluebird was planning to offer checks soon. This was a major development,...
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Bluebird flew (sorry about that) onto the scene in early October 2012 and set the industry atwitter about the strength of prepaid as a checking account alternative. A partnership between odd couple American Express and Walmart, Bluebird put prepaid competitors in the cross hairs while simultaneously legitimizing the space in the eyes of observers....
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Marketing is a funny thing. For most companies, marketing to just one customer segment is hard enough. Try marketing to every customer segment. In the world. That’s effectively what American Express is now doing. Amex card products span from the only-for-the-invited Black Card all the way to its PASS prepaid card for parents to...
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U.S. consumers appear to like plastic again. Last year, spending with credit, debit and prepaid cards by U.S. consumers increased to almost 5% to almost $3.8 trillion, according to The Nilson Report. Visa led the way with 55.2% of the spending on both credit and debit cards, followed by MasterCard with 26%, American Express...
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You can now cash in on your Twitter feed.
American Express introduced Amex Sync on Twitter Monday, which allows for limited payments via Twitter hashtag. American Express members can link their cards to their Twitter accounts and simply tweet hashtags of special, American Express-approved offers in order to buy products on Twitter. This moves Amex into the space of services provided by Portland, Ore.-based Chirpify.
Learn more about this at Bank Innovation 2013. Request an invitation here.
Green Dot CEO Steven Streit indicated that GoBank, Green Dot’s checking account product, would not move forward in mobile payments until the payments space settled down and a standard was established for the industry. Green Dot launched GoBank, its mobile-only checking account, to great acclaim on January 15. The product is part of a...
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Bluebird, the novel American Express-Walmart joint venture, will soon offer its customers the ability to write checks from their accounts, Alpesh Chokshi, president of global payments for American Express, told Bank Innovation Friday. Chokshi described Bluebird as epitomizing “the power of mobile,” so why take a step back into the old-fashioned world of checks?...
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