The 2013 Federal Reserve Payments Study Detailed Report provides new information on the payment landscape including updated results on the intensity of card use by consumers and businesses; further discussion of previously released information on third-party payments fraud; new estimates of over-the-counter cash withdrawals and deposits at bank branches and wire transfers made by businesses and consumers; and discussion of emerging and alternative payments likely to replace traditional payments such as cash and checks.  

Some of the findings:

• Among general-purpose cards with purchase activity in 2012, consumers preferred debit cards, with an average use of 23 payments per month, compared with an average of 11 payments per month for general-purpose credit cards and 10 payments per month for general-purpose prepaid cards.
• Credit cards are more prevalent than other general-purpose card types. Of the 776 million general purpose cards in force (issued, activated, and not expired) nationally in 2012, 334 million were credit cards, 283 million were debit cards, and 159 million were prepaid cards.
• ATM cash withdrawals using debit cards and general-purpose prepaid cards dropped slightly, growth in the value of ATM withdrawals continued to exceed inflation over the years.
• In 2012, there were 1 billion ATM cash deposits with an average value of $374, compared with 1.6 billion over-the-counter cash deposits which averaged $1,000.
• Businesses are the overwhelming users of wire transfers. There were 287.5 million wire transfers in 2012, with a value of $1,116.3 trillion. Consumers accounted for just 6 percent of all wire transfers by number and 0.14 percent by value. Business customers accounted for the significant majority of both the number and value of wire transfers.
• There were more than 250 million mobile payments made using a mobile wallet application, and at least 205 million person-to-person or money transfer payments.

The study is the fifth in a series of triennial survey efforts, collecting data for 2012 and including, for the first time, a broader view of trends by incorporating some information from earlier studies.  

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Wire Transfer Compliance