PayPal Prepaid MasterCard Cards for Unbanked Customers
- PayPal is pursuing its prepaid-oriented strategy and proposes a new card also available to non PayPal account holders. NetSpend, processor specialising in prepaid, will be distributing the new PayPal Prepaid MasterCard issued by The Bancorp Bank and be in charge of processing payments.
- PayPal will charge 4.95 dollars monthly fees, plus 1.95 dollar per ATM transaction. The cards can be reloaded through funds transfer or at 100,000 NetSpend points in the US.
- Users benefiting from an associated PayPal account will be proposed additional added value services (rewards, optional saving account, alerts, PFM tools, etc.). NetSpend will then be recruiting new customers for PayPal using its own databases.
- Discussions are in process to distribute the cards via physical stores –as with the Visa prepaid cards already proposed in several 7-Eleven stores.
- The Internet player once again asserts its will to promote physical acceptance and could enhance its customer bases through services exclusively proposed to its account holders.
- PayPal and MasterCard have also recently launched the PayPal Access Prepaid MasterCard card in the UK to enable PayPal customers to make prepaid in-store purchases.
- PayPal relies on a strategy based on setting up partnerships with banking institutions. In Spain, for instance, La Caixa, proposes its customers to open a PayPal account directly from their online banking portal for future top-ups.