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Boston, MA (PRWEB) February 23, 2012

With 1.2 billion residents and the world’s ninth largest economy, India is the world’s biggest underdeveloped payment market. Despite regulatory pressure and progress in the banking industry, the country’s infrastructure and banking systems remain inadequate and lacking.

While India’s environment creates room for prepaid development, it also makes sustained industry growth challenging. As a result, closed-loop prepaid dominates the market, and semi-open loop issuers have had to be creative in delivering products work within the current environment before the banking industry catches up.

Mercator’s latest research provides a comprehensive overview of the prepaid card market in India. Both open and closed-loop prepaid card markets are discussed, along with an analysis of 11 major prepaid categories. The report also examines major players in the business ecosystem as well as strategic issues such as the regulatory environment and industry trends.

“Within the Indian prepaid market, non-traditional prepaid cards play an important role in serving local consumer need.” Terry Xie, director of Mercator Advisory Group’s International Advisory Service and principal analyst on the report, commented. “Paper card-based prepaid products became very popular among Indian consumers as they are accepted even at smaller merchants where POS terminals are not installed. For prepaid issuers, developing non-traditional card-acceptance solutions is huge because they allow prepaid cards to be widely adopted without traditional POS infrastructure is not there. And the consumer and merchant base can be migrated towards the more traditional mag-stripe card solution when the industry develops. Today, the prepaid card market in India is booming with the co-existence of both non-traditional and traditional card products.”

This report is the third in Mercator’s International Prepaid Market series, following China and the U.K.

Highlights of the research findings include:

A review of the players offering competitive prepaid solutions to both organizations and consumers in different market segments.

2010 sales in the India prepaid market, loads across 11 prepaid categories, and the segment accounting for 79.1 percent of the total market.

Dominance and growth outlook for closed and open-loop offerings.

Drawbacks and advantages of India’s underdeveloped banking infrastructure.

Shifts prepaid card companies are making to appeal consumers with different needs in this increasingly competitive market.

This report contains 34 pages and 12 exhibits.

Companies mentioned in this report include: Airtel M Commerce Services, Axis Bank, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC, MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Paymate, JP Morgan Chase, India Oil, Corp, Pizza Hut, Bharat Petroleum, Future Group, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd , Pine Labs (Onedesk), Sodexo, Itzcash, and Venture Infotek, among others.

Members of Mercator Advisory Group’s International Advisory Service have access to this report as well as the upcoming research for the year ahead, presentations, analyst access and other membership benefits.

Please visit us online at http://www.mercatoradvisorygroup.com.

For more information and media inquiries, please call Mercator Advisory Group’s main line: (781) 419-1700, send E-mail to info@mercatoradvisorygroup.com.

For free industry news, opinions, research, company information and more visit us at http://www.PaymentsJournal.com.

Follow us on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/MercatorAdvisor.

About Mercator Advisory Group

Mercator Advisory Group is the leading, independent research and advisory services firm exclusively focused on the payments and banking industries. We deliver pragmatic and timely research and advice designed to help our clients uncover the most lucrative opportunities to maximize revenue growth and contain costs. Our clients range from the world’s largest payment issuers, acquirers, processors, merchants and associations to leading technology providers and investors. Mercator Advisory Group is also the publisher of the online payments and banking news and information portal PaymentsJournal.com.

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Boston, MA (PRWEB) February 22, 2012

The proximity and cultural similarities between the United States and Canada have made the Canadian market one of the first expansion opportunities for that singular American creation: the credit card. After developing a mature payment card market over the past half century, Canada is witnessing a new influx of interest from payments industry players from outside its borders.

These players are drawn by a variety of reasons including Canadas relatively stable and well-regulated financial system, solid long-term economic performance even through the recent global recession, low business bankruptcy rates, and a populace relatively skilled at managing its debt. Others have sought market entry because of the current phase of transition in technical standards within the payments system.

Mercator Advisory Groups new report, Payment Acquiring and Merchant Services in Canada, gives those seeking initial or expanded access to the Canadian market a view into the current dynamics at play. It also provides established operators with a summary of points on which they must compete to maintain and grow market share within the broader payments space, and specifically in the merchant services and payment acquiring sectors.

Canadas migration to EMV is creating shifts in business activity within the payments space, as a slew of vendors have rushed in from Europe and other markets that have already moved to chip cards, David Fish, senior analyst at Mercator Advisory Group and author of the report comments. The nexus of EMV and e-commerce trends has another stable of providers moving to expand their scope of services and customers fraud solutions vendors. As EMV cards become more mainstream, fraudsters will be forced to abandon card counterfeiting and turn increasingly to card-not-present fraud. As e-commerce gateway providers and payment security vendors also pursue global expansion, Canada and other markets migrating to EMV will be vitally important.

Highlights of this report include:

Market sizing and landscape review for payments in Canada

Examination of the merchant market, merchant payment method acceptance preferences, and segments of opportunity

Major acquirer market share and target industries

Discussion of the merchant acquiring value chain in Canada and how various entities engage with the market

A review of the broad trends affecting the payments industry in Canada

This report is 24 pages long and has 13 exhibits.

Companies mentioned in this report include: American Express, Bank of Montreal, Beanstream, Caledon Card Services, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Canadian Payments Association, CardWorks, Chase Paymentech, China Union Pay, Citibank, Collective POS, Collis, Costco, Desjardins, Diners Club, Discover, Elavon, Emeris (TELUS), eWise, First Data, Gemalto, Giesecke & Devrient, Global Payments, Heartland Payment Systems, Home Trust, HSBC, Ingenico, Interac, JCB, MasterCard, Merrick Bank, Moneris, Monex, National Bank of Canada, NXGEN, Optimal Payments, Payment Processing Inc. (PPI), PayPal, Peoples Trust, Pivotal Payments, Precidia, PSiGate, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank, Squirrel, Toronto Dominion, VersaPay, and Visa.

Members of Mercator Advisory Groups Credit and International Advisory Services have access to this report as well as the upcoming research for the year ahead, presentations, analyst access and other membership benefits.

Please visit us online at http://www.mercatoradvisorygroup.com.

For more information and media inquiries, please call Mercator Advisory Group’s main line: (781) 419-1700, send E-mail to info@mercatoradvisorygroup.com.

For free industry news, opinions, research, company information and more visit us at http://www.PaymentsJournal.com.

Follow us on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/MercatorAdvisor.

About Mercator Advisory Group

Mercator Advisory Group is the leading, independent research and advisory services firm exclusively focused on the payments and banking industries. We deliver pragmatic and timely research and advice designed to help our clients uncover the most lucrative opportunities to maximize revenue growth and contain costs. Our clients range from the world’s largest payment issuers, acquirers, processors, merchants and associations to leading technology providers and investors. Mercator Advisory Group is also the publisher of the online payments and banking news and information portal PaymentsJournal.com.

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Sunnyvale, CA (PRWEB) February 15, 2012

CreditSesame.com (http://www.creditsesame.com), the fast-growing personal finance and credit education resource site, announced findings today that reveal consumers are still missing out on credit card savings despite numerous services available to help them. Because choosing the right credit card can be complicated but shouldnt be, Credit Sesame also announced the launch of its credit card matching service that will help consumers find the card thats best for their financial situation. Credit Sesame takes the guesswork out of finding the right credit card by analyzing the consumers existing financial profile, goals and credit score to provide credit card recommendations best fit for their individual needs.

The study analyzed over 1.6 million existing credit card accounts and found two distinct groups of cardholdersthose interested in saving money through the best rates and those interested in the best rewards program offers:

Norwalk, CT (PRWEB) February 22, 2012

Balance transfer fees for 0% offers declined from 3.25% to 2.95%. This is the first time the average fees have dipped below 3% since Sept 2010. Fees are now 12% lower than last year. The average duration of 0% APR balance transfer credit card offers declined slightly in February, according to the SmartBalanceTransfers.com monthly survey of online balance transfer offers. The sharp decline in balance transfer fees in February is largely the result of limited time, no fee balance transfer offers available from Discover and Chase. When these two cards are excluded from the index, average balance transfer fees jump from 2.95% to 3.25%.

The driving force behind the decline in average balance transfer lengths in February was a reduction in 0% introductory periods by Citibank from 21 months to 18 months. This tightening impacted three offers in the survey and dragged down average 0% balance transfer durations to an even 12 months, the lowest level recorded since May of 2011 and a modest decrease from Januarys average of 12.2 months.

At present, Citibanks three 18 month 0% balance transfer offers along with an 18 month offer from Discover are the longest available, while both Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank continue to offer the shortest offers surveyed with 6 month durations.

According to Jeffrey Weber, Editor & Chief Card Analyst at Smart Balance Transfers, In terms of offer quality, February is by far the best month for consumers in the market for balance transfers since the credit crisis. However, the shortening of 0% promotional periods by Citibank this month may mark the beginning of a downward move in introductory periods amongst all major issuers.

Additionally, Mr. Weber points out that because no fee balance transfer offers from Chase and Discover are being offered as limited time promotions, the window for consumers to obtain what are essentially the best balance transfer offers available in years may be closing shortly.

About the SBT 0% Balance Transfer Offer Index

Updated monthly, the SBT 0% Balance Transfer Offer index reflects the average fee and promotional period for a basket of 22 credit card offers. These offers represent all banks included in the J.D. Power annual credit card satisfaction survey, including Citibank, Chase, Discover, Capital One, Bank of America, Barclays, Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank.

Additional commentary on this month’s report can be found at http://www.smartbalancetransfers.com/blog/2012/02/february-2012-balance-transfer-credit-card-report-804/

About SmartBalanceTransfers.com

Founded in 2007, SmartBalanceTransfers.com – http://www.smartbalancetransfers.com/ – is a leading destination for consumers seeking targeted information on balance transfer credit cards. SmartBalanceTransfers.com provides consumers with in depth analysis of credit card offers as well as expert advice and tools to help consumers make wise choices when transferring credit card balances.

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Dr. Hersh Shefrin, renowned behavioral economist and author of Beyond Greed and Fear, has been retained by Chase to offer tips about how you can use Chase Blueprint to keep your finances back on track. Design a plan for your Chase credit card at www.chase.com
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