Green Dot to Expand GoBank, Launch GoBusiness and MoneyPak Plus (Nov. 6, 2015)
Green Dot is pressing the gas pedal when it comes to expanding GoBank, with new distribution plans for next year, including a new distribution partner and a GoBusiness account rolling out to serve at least one company’s large base of 1099 workers. During last week’s earnings call with investors, Green Dot CEO Steve Streit also discussed plans for new prepaid products, along with MoneyPak Plus—a reload product to replace its discontinued MoneyPak.
The company will enhance “the consumer version of GoBank sold online and at Walmart with a new marketing look and feel, and a new value proposition that we think will help attract more customers, including those who already have a checking account at another bank,” Streit said, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript. GoBank won the 2015 Paybefore Awards Best in Category Award for the Gotta-Have Mobile App, and its GoBank debit MasterCard was a winner in the Consumer Champion category earlier this year.
What’s more, Green Dot has developed a small business version of GoBank, GoBusiness, to serve the on-demand workforce, such as DIY experts looking to sell products on Etsy or small businesses that sign up with Square and need a small business checking out. Green Dot also plans to partner with at least one company that will offer the GoBusiness account to its large base of 1099 workers. The company believes it can become a leading bank account provider for the fast-growing, on-demand and marketplace economies.
On the prepaid side of the business, Streit described “new and compelling features” for the Green Dot Everyday prepaid card and a new debit card product for national distribution aimed at a more broad-based market segment. The new line of prepaid cards will enable cardholders to write checks to pay their rent and other bills, deposit checks with their mobile phones and access direct deposit funds up to two days before payday, Streit said. “All of our products will also have new pricing plans that are designed to attract the best high-use prepaid customers while providing Green Dot with superior unit economics compared with our current slate of products,” he added.
Starting in the first half of next year, Green Dot also will be rolling out a new product to replace the MoneyPak PIN product it discontinued earlier in 2015 because of fraud issues. The new MoneyPak Plus will be available at retail and “rung up by the cashier the exact same way as the old MoneyPak product worked. But then it deploys a number of high-tech risk mitigants and other processes to ensure that the product isn’t susceptible to the types of abuse that caused us to discontinue the original MoneyPak product,” Streit explained.
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