[January 27, 2015]

New Publication Establishes Guidelines for Evolving Payroll Card Industry

The Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) has released its Compass Guide to Payroll Cards, a tool defining industry-wide best practices and product features for high-quality payroll cards. Today, payroll cards offer many American employees an affordable, safe, and convenient alternative to receiving wages in the form of cash or paper checks, but the quality of products is not consistent across the industry. The Compass Guide to Payroll Cards is based on CFSI's Compass (News - Alert) Principles-Embrace Inclusion, Build Trust, Promote Success, and Create Opportunity-aspirational guidelines outlining how the industry can design and deliver the basic ools people use to manage their day-to-day finances and improve their financial health. CFSI also announced commitments made by MasterCard (News - Alert) and Visa to implement recommended practices from the Guide.

"A high-quality card can help hard-working Americans plan for the future and take control of their financial health," said Jennifer Tescher, President & CEO, CFSI. "We are pleased that MasterCard and Visa are putting our Compass Guide to Payroll Cards into practice, and we look forward to working with them to ensure consumers have access to the high-quality products they need."

The guidelines outline practices across a broad spectrum of categories including: Choice, Safety, Affordability, Access, Transparency, and Convenience. Examples are included with each guideline to illustrate how companies might apply the guidelines in their work. Developed in consultation with a wide range of advisors from across the industry, the Guide is designed to be used by all actors in the payroll card value chain-program managers, issuing banks, processors, payments networks, and employers.

MasterCard has committed to incorporating CFSI's recommendations into the company's existing Payroll Card Standards to promote Choice, Transparency and Education. Visa has committed to developing an educational course for employers, incorporating recommendations from the Guide to ensure they offer payroll card programs in a high-quality way.

The Compass Guide to Payroll Cards was made possible by generous funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The Compass Principles are supported in part by the Ford Foundation and the Omidyar Network.

To read the guide, visit http://www.cfsinnovation.com/Document-Library/The-Compass-Guide-to-Payroll-Cards.

About CFSI:

The Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) is the nation's authority on consumer financial health. CFSI leads a network of financial services innovators committed to building a more robust financial services marketplace with higher quality products and services. Through its Compass Principles and a lineup of proprietary research, insights and events, CFSI informs, advises, and connects members of its network to seed the innovation that will transform the financial services landscape. For more on CFSI, go to http://www.cfsinnovation.com and follow on Twitter (News - Alert) at @CFSInnovation.

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