Walmart Bolsters Prepaid Offerings with 6 New Cards (Nov. 4, 2013)
Just over a year since launching the Bluebird prepaid card with American Express, retail giant Walmart is expanding its suite of prepaid products, adding six new cards to its Paybefore Award-winning line of GPR cards—all issued by Green Dot Corp.’s Green Dot Bank.
Four of the new cards will be under Walmart’s own MoneyCard brand. The new MoneyCards include a “Create Your Own” Prepaid Visa card, which enables customers to personalize a card with a photo, as well as NASCAR- and NFL-branded Visa cards. A new prepaid MasterCard, meanwhile, is designed for outdoor enthusiasts, and includes special offers throughout the hunting season. Those cards all feature a $5 purchase price. Walmart also will begin offering Russell Simmons’ RushCard Live Prepaid Visa card and the AARP Foundation Prepaid MasterCard for $4.95 each. The AARP card can be loaded via electronic federal benefits disbursements and offers a savings account feature. The six new cards join the original trio of Walmart MoneyCards—Basic, Plus and Preferred—to bring Walmart’s prepaid card portfolio up to nine products. All of the cards are reloadable at Walmart stores and throughout the Green Dot Retail Network. Additional MoneyCard features include gas and pharmacy discounts, merchant-funded offers and check cashing reloads.
Green Dot Bank took over issuing duties for Walmart’s MoneyCard network in June, replacing GE Capital Retail Bank. Green Dot, which benefits from being exempt from debit interchange caps, had served as program manager for MoneyCard since the line’s 2006 launch. The Pasadena, Calif.-based company said its involvement with MoneyCard was largely to thank for its increased revenue in the third quarter of 2013, which measured $139.1 million, a 4 percent jump over the previous year.
