On 3 June, 2004, the payment cards centre of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia hosted a conference on pre-paid cards. The conference brought together representatives from eight major banks, seven national retailers, three state governments, three federal regulators, a score of providers of prepaid card services, and a number of legal professionals to discuss the development of the pre-paid card market and its regulation.
What follows is a summary of the conference, beginning with the opening comments of Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia president Anthony Santomero. His comments are followed by a synopsis of the conference keynote on broad trends in the consumer payments industry. This keynote was delivered the evening before the formal conference proceedings by Ronald Congemi, president of debit services and Star Systems for First Data Corporation.
The rest of the summary is structured around the two key questions the event was designed to answer: How do pre-paid cards function and how are they regulated?

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