A new set of standards for fee transparency in prepaid made its debut on Tuesday. A “standardized fee box” proposed by the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) already has three adoptees signed on: Green Dot, Plastyc, and Ready Credit.
“Consumers need to be able to easily determine the true cost of a prepaid card and compare different products before deciding which to purchase,” said David Newville, CFSI’s Policy Manager, in a release issued through Business Wire. “A well-designed fee box can help them make informed choices. By developing a simplified and standardized format, companies will ultimately attract more consumers to prepaid cards.”
CFSI also used its release to ask the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to conduct “consumer testing of prepaid disclosures.”
The announcement is timely from a regulatory standpoint for two reasons. On March 14, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, is set to hold a hearing that is expected to include testimony on practices in prepaid. The very next day, the Senate Banking Committee is set to hold a hearing of its own.
CFSI is a not-for-profit that conducts research on financial services provided to the nation’s underserved consumers.
