Ecount has announced a name change to Citi Prepaid Services - saying the "strategic renaming comes as a final chapter in Ecount's successful integration with Citi, which acquired the Conshohocken-based company in March 2007. The acquisition was a part of a core strategy to enhance Citi's cash management platform for corporations, financial institutions and governments worldwide." READ MORE »

Ecount has introduced a suite of prepaid health care incentives that "provides insurers, employers and plan managers with a highly effective solution for encouraging healthy living."

The Philadelphia Daily News profiles Ecount founders Matt Gillin and Paul Raden and their investors. "Gillin is sanguine when he talks about the Citi acquisition. 'Honestly, we always knew that we would get here someday, so I'm somewhat reserved about it. What's really the coolest part is all the people who contributed along the way.'"

XBux has announced the success of their XBux Prepaid Card Program that "aggregates sponsors, promoters and competitors to simplify reward delivery." According to the company, the XBux Prepaid Card Program, powered by Ecount, enables immediate, streamlined payments to competitors.

With the cost of gasoline at record levels, payments companies aren't missing any opportunities to promote new card programs designed to help consumers save money on gas. Today, Ecount announced seeing a 500% growth in demand for their Fuel Card program over last year - saying that the dramatic increase in demand is due to numerous companies turning to the Ecount Fuel Card program to help provide relief from high gas prices for their employees and customers. Separately, National Payment Card LLC has announced the launch the "first ACH payment card for the gas industry" - saying it provides a way for consumers to pay less for gasoline through an immediate cash reward and for station operators to substantially lower their processing costs for participating consumers compared with the current charges of credit and debit card interchange and processing fees.

Visa USA has announced that Visa TravelMoney cards will now be available in more than 1,550 Safeway store locations nationwide, including participating Safeway, Carrs, Dominick's, Genuardi's, Pak 'n Save, Pavilions, Randalls, Vons, and Tom Thumb stores. NetSpend will market the reloadable prepaid travel cards and process transactions for the issuer, Inter National Bank.

Ecount has released figures on Banked vs. Unbanked Cardholders: Understanding the Use of Prepaid Cards in Today's Marketplace. The data, based on the Ecount Prepaid Index, outlines baseline spending habits of both groups, as well as provides insight into the role that prepaid cards play in the lives of consumers.

Ecount has announced survey results concluding that payroll debit cards are as popular with banked employees as unbanked employees, establishing that payroll cards are a desired benefit for employees within all demographics.

The use of stored value debit rewards cards for sales incentives continues to grow. This morning, two new programs were announced - one involving the gaming company Nintendo and the other involving network equipment supplier D-Link. Both are using debit rewards cards as incentives to their sales distribution channel partners.