Campus prepaid card programs continue to expand as schools and parents look for more controlled and convenient ways to manage student spending. Research from Mercator Advisory Group highlights growing adoption of closed-loop campus cards across colleges as well as elementary and secondary schools, driven by demand for spending controls, rising education-related expenses, and evolving regulatory pressures surrounding open-loop products. As educational institutions explore new payment technologies and even government-backed student aid distribution programs, campus card systems are becoming a larger and more sophisticated segment of the prepaid payments market.
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Data for today’s episode is provided by Mercator Advisory Group’s report – 16th Annual U.S. Closed-Loop Prepaid Cards Market Forecasts, 2018–2022
- More campuses are coming online with card adoption – particularly elemtary & secondary schools
- Parents & schools want controls over the way students spend money
- Regulators are making open-loop campus cards more difficult to attain, hence closed-loop growth
- Ever-increasing tuition, room & board, and fees support load growth on cards
- New government-issued ‘NextGen Campus Cards’ are being tested for student loan distribution
- The closed-loop campus card segments grew by 3% in 2018, a $28 billion segment
About the report
The report titled 16th Annual U.S. Closed-Loop Prepaid Cards Market Forecasts, 2018–2022 provides an analysis of the growth and development of the prepaid cards industry through 2022. The report examines loads, growth potential, and market dynamics in the United States across all closed-loop prepaid card segments.
Mercator Advisory Group’s forecast report identifies key segments that will continue to decline over the next few years as well as those that should see growth. However, the economy, politics, and consumer behavior will all influence which segments grow and which decline.
This report reviews and forecasts load dollar volume for closed-loop segments. This forecast highlights the segments approaching market saturation as well as those that will continue to experience annual growth.
“Prepaid providers should be evaluating their businesses and looking for ways to diversify,” commented C. Sue Brown, Director of Mercator Advisory Group’s Prepaid Advisory Service, the author of the report. “Opportunities in the prepaid market shift with economic, political, and regulatory changes. New technologies such as the internet of things, connected car, and use of prepaid for transit and tolls may provide growth markets in the years to come.”
