A. Complexities of Prepaid
But the strengths of the prepaid card category also represent many of its inherent challenges. Unlike credit and debit cards, which are homogeneous products commercialized primarily by a single type of organization (i.e., financial institutions), prepaid cards present tremendous complexities:

· Breadth of card products
· Variety of marketing strategies and distribution channels
· Diversity of value chain participants, which include financial institutions (FIs) and non-FIs of various kinds including networks, processors, program managers and distributors
· Divergent business models, value propositions and risks for each stakeholder by product, vertical and distribution method
· Differing technology infrastructure and operational support requirements by product, vertical and distribution method
· Rapid ongoing change and evolution due to the early stage of the market

B. Inability to Use Credit and Debit Platforms for Prepaid
Electronic card processing systems have existed for many decades, initially serving the charge and credit card market and later the debit card market. With the emergence of prepaid cards in the late 1990s, it became apparent that these legacy platforms do not lend themselves to processing prepaid cards because of the unique complexities of prepaid, as described above.