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Prepaid Ventures Ltd., a start-up prepaid card provider based in Scarsdale, N.Y., has begun offering a prepaid card called NexisCard that check cashing companies can sell to customers to earn income from direct deposits to the card accounts, Andrew Siden, Prepaid Ventures founder and president, tells CardLine. When consumers sign up for the NexisCard, the check casher enrolls them in payroll direct deposit and receives fees from the customers for each deposit. That fee is the same amount the customer would pay to cash the check, which varies from company to company and state to state, Siden says. "We've brought the check casher into the electronic loop," Siden says. Prepaid Ventures shares the fees cardholders pay for using the card for things such as withdrawing money from ATMs or paying bills with the check casher that enrolled them, Siden says. Prepaid Ventures has a proprietary processing system it uses in conjunction with Milwaukee-based Metavante Corp. to process card transactions. MetaBank, which is based in Storm Lake, Iowa, issues the cards, Siden said. The company announced Wednesday it has signed an agreement with Prepaid Resources LLC, a consulting and software company, to offer Prepaid Resources' automated federal benefits enrollment service with the cards to make it easier for consumers to have government benefits deposited directly to their card accounts.
