Green Dot Shifts Cash Reload Strategy to Focus on Swipe (March 31, 2014)
Green Dot Corp. is in the midst of a national rollout of a swipe reload service aimed at making reloading cash onto a prepaid card more convenient, efficient and intuitive. The company’s Reload @ the Register process removes the need for a cardholder to use a prepaid “chit” or MoneyPak when reloading a card with cash. Instead, the customer simply goes to the register and gives the cash (plus any reload fee) to the cashier, who then swipes the prepaid card through the POS terminal. Green Dot’s system is able to see the transaction in real time, and the funds are credited to the cardholder’s account with no further steps required by the cardholder.
The service, which has been available at select retailers for some time, now is being rolled out across Green Dot’s 90,000 location-strong merchant network. Reload @ the Register “will be a big win for all stakeholders in the prepaid card reload value chain,” said Helena Mao, general manager, Green Dot Reload Network. “For the retailer, it means that they will no longer have to provide shelving for paper reload chits, which will reduce in-store labor to re-stock and maintain those products. For the prepaid program manager, it means a more intuitive reload process that’s easier for their cardholders to learn.” Meanwhile, prepaid cardholders benefit from a faster and easier cash reload process than the paper chit method, which often requires extra steps, such as going online or making a phone call to confirm the reload. Finally, Green Dot also will save “a significant amount of time and money” by having to produce fewer paper reload chits for its nationwide network.
Reload @ the Register is powered by Green Dot’s existing Swipe Interface Technology (SwIT), a cash-reload platform the company brought to the Paybefore Award-winning Walmart Rapid Reload service in 2012. Green Dot said it will expand SwIT to most of its other merchant partners by the end of this year.
