Search Results
Discussion Paper
The merchant-acquiring side of the payment card industry; structure, operations, and challenges
On January 19, 2007, the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia sponsored a workshop led by Marc Abbey, managing partner at First Annapolis Consulting, to discuss the merchant-acquiring side of the payment cards industry. Abbey described the often overlooked acquiring industry as a dynamic growth business that is an integral part of the payment cards industry. He outlined several factors that have affected the evolution of the industry and described the current state of industry dynamics in terms of growth, competition, and business economics. In addition, Abbey ...
Discussion Paper
New prospects for payment card application in health care
While consumers' use of payment cards has grown rapidly in many other areas, their use in making health-care payments has been far more limited. This paper attempts to explain several reasons for the slow adoption rates and identifies four related trends and developments that can be expected to lead to more rapid growth in the future: (1) a shift away from employer-provided health care to consumer-directed health-care plans, (2) an expansion of health-care savings accounts, (3) a move toward using debit and prepaid card applications to address limitations in paper-based environments, and (4) ...
Discussion Paper
Information security, data breaches, and protecting cardholder information: facing up to the challenges
On September 13 and 14, 2006, the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and the Electronic Funds Transfer Association (EFTA) hosted a conference entitled ?Information Security, Data Breaches, and Protecting Cardholder Information: Facing Up to the Challenges.? The two-day event was designed to bring together a diverse set of stakeholders from the U.S. payments industry to discuss a framework to guide industry practices and inform public policy. This paper summarizes key highlights from this event. Conference participants emphasized that the industry must address two ...
Discussion Paper
Proposed changes to Regulation Z: highlighting behaviors that affect credit costs
On June 29, 2007, the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia sponsored a workshop led by Jeanne Hogarth, program manager, Consumer Education and Research Section, Division of Consumer and Community Affairs, Federal Reserve Board of Governors, to discuss the Board?s proposed changes to disclosure requirements for open-end credit, in particular, credit card billing statements and solicitation materials. Hogarth tied the proposed changes to her own research that identified certain behaviors most likely to affect the interest rates consumers pay for credit card ...