“Loaded with Benefits. Not Fees” their online ads read. The bank and card network, which traditionally serves higher net worth and business clients, is moving downstream to reach to the underbanked mass market, they say, by introducing a general purpose reloadable prepaid card (GPR, in the jargon) last week. It’s…
Let’s Finovate
The last couple days at Finovate San Francisco have been fun. The conference – focused on one-track, demo-only, 7 minute limit presentations by any financial technology company willing to spend a couple grand to hawk their wares to assembled gaggle – is getting big enough, as Brian McLoughlin pointed out,…
Prepaid Banks (Post Prepaid Expo)
A month ago BB&T launched a prepaid account, a GPR program targeting the underbanked. It sports a $10 monthly fee (half that if you deposit $1k/mo) and free cash deposits from any branch or via the Visa ReadyLink Network. Several banks have approached Green Dot about managing GPR programs for them.…
Keeping up with the Kards
My most recent post on FastCompany re: prepaid accounts, not proudly invoking the Kardashians.
Involuntarily Unbanked
On the last day of last year, the St. Louis Fed banked published a fascinating and somewhat bizarre report, titled “A System Dynamics Approach to Understanding the Use of Banks and Alternative Financial Services in St. Louis.” Drawing on their apparently famed complex systems capabilities, the report breaks down into smaller pieces how and why…
Lose the Card and Get an Account
Sandra Block’s article in USA Today last week was yet another page in the large volume of “beware of prepaid” stories published in the last year or so. It’s a familiar motif, “working class Peter got a prepaid card only to discover he was getting feed to death.” The five…
New Type of Stimulus
If you follow these things, you’ve probably heard about the Treasury’s new (if uncompellingly named) MyAccountCard pilot. Issued by soon-to-be Green Dot’s Bonneville Bank, managed by Green Dot, the US Treasury will send these GPR cards to 600,000 underbanked households, suggesting they use the card to receive their tax refunds.…
Treasury Seeks Access
The assistant secretary of the US Treasury, Michael Barr, gave a talk last week at the annual CFED conference and has echoed these comments in other places as well. He was talking about the underbanked. I was happy to see that most of his speech was about access. Too many…
Is ACE the New ADP?
Jennifer Tescher’s column in the American Banker today (sorry, you need a subscription to read it…) reminded me, a) how pleased I am to be associated with her and CFSI, and b) of a theory that I’ve had for a while: that Ace Cash Express is starting to look more…
WalMart vs GreenDot
Last week GreenDot’s IPO was rumored in question. It could be due to interchange changes or concentration risk. In either case, GreenDot’s relationship with WalMart is pivotal and not always aligned. First, interchange: Given GreenDot reports 30% of its income derives from interchange fees, the pro-retail pending interchange legislation might…