"Having now performed eight prepaid forecasts, Mercator Advisory Group has learned not to generalize about the prepaid market. GPR is not a product, it is a technology. Products designed to sell into government disbursements; Reloadable Incentives, Bank Turndown Solutions, Family Budgeting Tools, Payroll, and serving the Unbanked and Underserved, are all unique. Each product has a very different set of product requirements, go-to-market cost structures, sales cycles, and growth rates. In addition, the cost of executing a prepaid program continues to rise due to increased regulation which is occurring simultaneously with margin compression, driven by a fiercely competitive market.

Tim Sloane, vice president of Client Services, director of Mercator Advisory Group's Prepaid Advisory Service, and author of the report The Eighth Annual Prepaid Forecast.