Study: Too Many Prepaid Solutions Crowding Into Crowded Market
BOSTON-While the prepaid card market is still growing at a significant rate, research by Aite Group found there are too many processing solutions in the market.
According to the consultancy, solution providers must look for opportunities to consolidate with other processors or parts of the value chain in the market.
Prior to seeking a processing solution, Aite Group said decision-makers should have a clear picture of the amount of financial, resource investment and commitment the prepaid program can support. Its research shows due-diligence is required to understand the complexity of prepaid offerings that include multiple prepaid programs, products, features and marketing through multiple distribution channels.
Larger issuers and program managers are better served by hosted processing solutions, Aite Group advised, while smaller organizations with limited abilities should look no further than a turn-key solution.
"Business and technology teams should work together to identify the priorities that best support an organization's requirements to manage the prepaid business. Portfolio size and scale alone are not enough to make the determination. It is imperative to have a thorough understanding of the product sets and delivery channels that will be marketed to determine the right processing model," said Madeline Aufseeser, senior analyst in retail banking at Aite Group.
Consumers Using Tablets Differently Than Mobile Devices In Fin. Services
AUSTIN, Texas-Mobile banking data for June shows end-users leverage tablets differently than smartphones when it comes to mobile banking, according to new research.
Malauzai Software recently released its Monkey Insights service, reporting key trends in mobile banking application usage for June 2013. The study is based on June data for more than 99 banks and credit unions encompassing 1,200,000 logins for 98,000 active mobile banking users.
iPad end-users make transfers at more than two times the value of their counterparts on iPhones and Android smartphones. The actual number is 2.25 times higher, with total transfers averaging just under $900.00.
According to Malauzai, the speculation is iPad end-users will tend to keep higher balances and therefore their corresponding transfers also would be higher. "We cannot correlate this data to the size of the account, so this could be one of many reasons the iPad community averages higher-dollar transfer amounts," the company said.
Two Theories Proposed
iPad end-users look up branches and ATMs at three times the rate of their smartphone user counterparts. Malauzai said there may be two reasons for this. First, the Locator on the iPad is more user-friendly with bigger graphics.
Second, the Locator feature is more prominently displayed on the iPad, as it shows on the login screen and opens up automatically to show the nearest branch or ATM.
Transaction details are used by 73% of end users after login for iPad vs. 37% for all smart phones.
"We speculate this is caused by the transactional data being more readily available to iPad end users with more of a prominent display and larger text," Malauzai said. "It simply may be easier to look at this data on the iPad, which is driving the usage so high."
