Green Dot posts 4Q loss, promises better results this year

Green Dot in Pasadena, Calif., reported a $1.3 million loss in the fourth quarter but declared that it is on track to deliver stronger financial results in 2017.

The prepaid card company’s quarterly loss was an improvement from the same period a year earlier, when Green Dot lost $6.1 million.

Steve Streit

Green Dot has been striving to overcome the setback it suffered from the discontinuation of its popular MoneyPak product in 2015 due to concerns about the product’s exploitation by fraudsters. MoneyPak was later redesigned and then relaunched in April 2016.

Green Dot said Wednesday that its customers made $4.01 billion of purchases on its cards in the fourth quarter, up 4% from a year earlier. At the same time, the firm reported an 8% drop in active cards to 4.13 million at the end of the fourth quarter.

Total operating revenues were $162.8 million, up 7.8% from the same period in 2015.

Green Dot CEO Steve Streit said in a press release that the company had “another sequentially strong quarter.” He touted “solid revenue performance across our businesses combined with the success of numerous efficiency projects.”

For 2017, Green Dot said that it expects to record diluted earnings per share of $1.12 to $1.20. That compares with earnings per share of 80 cents in 2016 and 72 cents in 2015.

In January, Green Dot announced it had agreed to acquire UniRush LLC, which operates RushCard, a competing product whose fortunes suffered as a result of a payment processing fiasco in 2015.

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