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 of you who read this (hi mom) already know that, a) the high fees cited are the exception and not the norm, and b) the bank account, either with overdraft or with fees is more expensive for common real-world use-cases.

The GPR industry is seen as purveyors of “cards.”  A card invokes an image of fragility and danger.  A card is a commodity.  It can be lost and tossed in the trash.  It can compromise your privacy.  It has breakage.  It is insecure and impermanent.  (These are perceptions of cards, not necessarily the reality – but perception is reality: read the paper).

Instead, GPR needs to be seen and understood as an “account.”  An account is a relationship, not a commodity.  It can’t be lost or thrown away.  It is a service and offers protections.  A prepaid account offers better parity to a checking account.  They beg comparison instead of repelling it.  In fact the notion of a prepaid account invokes many positives, like good-funds instead of overdraft, or electronic payment instead of paper payment.

Besides, if more GPR program managers (and their supporting issuers and processors) would approach their cards more like accounts, their per customer margins would increase – as would their price to earnings.  Someone pointed out today that it’s actually cheaper to buy a new Wal-Mart card than to reload a  GPR through Green Dot.

Let’s transform the general purpose prepaid language and substance from cards to accounts and watch how press coverage morphs accordingly.