Retailers’ Prepaid Cards Make Gains in Mercator Report
Prepaid cards have gained popularity among U.S. consumers in recent years, with 63 percent of adults buying the payments device in the year preceding June, according to a new survey report from Mercator Advisory Group. That compares to 61 percent for the last survey report, and 56 percent for the year before that.
The report, “Consumers and Prepaid: Growing Use, Especially for Retailer-Specific Cards,” also found that those retailer-specific cards are the “most popular type of prepaid cards,” with 45 percent of U.S. adult consumers buying them in 2015, up from 41 percent in 2014. Mercator based its findings on Web surveys of 3,009 consumers.
“Retailer specific cards are typically bought by consumers of all ages, but recently, young adults are most likely to buy even retailer-specific cards, nearly 3 in 5 young adult respondents indicating they bought them during the previous year, up from less than a half of young adults who did so in the 2015 survey,” Mercator said. “As retailers introduce new mobile apps, often with mobile payment options that include their retailer prepaid cards, young adults begin to buy retailer cards for their own use, so the cards are becoming a primary payment tool and not just used as gifts.”
The report said that 49 percent of women surveyed buy retailer-specific cards. That compares with 40 percent of men.
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