Dan Henry is in search of another "aha" moment.
At NetSpend, where Henry was CEO for six years until stepping down in July, that moment came around the time he joined the prepaid issuer, when it was mentioned to him that its cards might be useful to underbanked consumers. It wasn't long after that the company exited the gift card business and shifted its focus to general purpose prepaid cards aimed at folks who were largely being ignored by banks. Today, NetSpend, now owned by Total Systems Services, counts roughly 60 million of the underbanked as
customers and its cards are sold in about 100,000 locations.
"To see the growth that NetSpend accomplished by serving a consumer that had been overlooked and neglected for decades was very satisfying," Henry says.
Henry isn't sure what's next for him, but he says he plans to look beyond the prepaid world for opportunities.
"So much is going on in payments that I am not clued in on, whether it is mobile or Bitcoin," Henry says. "I'll probably make a few calls, attend a few conferences and see if I want to go back to work or not."
