Prepaid cards

Uber’s latest app update adds a stored-value account that incentivises riders to dive deeper into the Uber ecosystem — and away from their bank or mobile wallet provider.

When Chris Winship, partner of FTV Capital, paid $35 million in private equity funds for a slice of the digital gift card player Tango Card in May 2018, he did so with the expectation that he would quickly find a buyer.

The Texas bank, which partners with the U.S. Treasury to dispense federal benefits via prepaid cards, is alleged to have dropped the ball as hundreds of cardholders say their money was forwarded to fraudsters posing as them.

Texas-based digital gift card platform company Swych has launched a gift card service for instant cross-border gifting to India following its recent acquisition of GiftCardsIndia.

From its beginnings as a standalone Starbucks Card app, the Starbucks mobile experience was always a bit different from what other companies tried to do.

Digital money platform Wirex has added a Ripple cryptocurrency wallet to its portfolio, giving its users the ability to exchange and spend Ripple's XRP token through their Wirex Visa cards.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has launched a mobile application to support commercial prepaid card programs and their cardholders.

Starbucks achieved rapid adoption of its mobile card app by building it on top of the highly successful Starbucks closed-loop gift card. Such a model could also apply to the cannabis market, which is largely shunned by mainstream banks and card networks.

Rural Alaskans, including Native Americans living in the mountains, may not have access to traditional banks. But they aren't exactly living off the grid.

On the surface, the Uber-Venmo partnership sounds like a coup for Venmo, getting its brand into the app that defined the ride-sharing category. But the partnership is a much bigger deal for Uber.

Attempts to legislate or regulate innovative payments treat consumers, who have affirmatively selected to use prepaid accounts or some other emerging access device to access their money, much differently than consumers who have decided to open a traditional bank account with an associated debit card, writes Brian Tate, president and CEO of the NBPCA.

The graveyard of defunct all-in-one startups includes companies like Coin, Swyp, Stratos and Plastc. But whenever one of these companies failed, its technology simply moved on to a new owner.

Companies of all sizes have attempted to serve kids and teens with prepaid cards or digital wallets with parental controls, but there are very few success stories. GoSave's twist is that it doesn't make a card or an app the focus of its experience.

Toronto-based Mint Corp. is taking advantage of the UAE government’s ambitious plans to develop a digital, cashless society.

Mobile and digital technology are expanding use cases for reloadable prepaid cards beyond their heritage as a tool primarily for the unbanked consumers. Furthermore, mobile commerce is driving broader acceptance of digital versions of both prepaid and retail gift cards.

Consumers using Paysafe's prepaid cards can now make online purchases in the Google Play store as part of a partnership with Google.

Comdata has been processing corporate payments for almost 50 years, paying truck drivers through a proprietary fuel card network. But its next chapter could be its toughest.

Success stories about teen-focused payment cards are relatively few, despite steady improvements in technology to give kids a measure of independence in their spending while parents hold the purse strings via shared apps.

Dan Henry, former CEO of Netspend, was elected chairman of the board at 3PEA International, a prepaid card program provider and processor.

Behavioral data about Hispanics’ use of digital payments is scarce, but the sector as a whole spends more than $1.4 trillion annually and its population growth rate significantly outpaces the mainstream, based on U.S. Census Bureau data.