Prepaid Cash Card Uk

The Potential of Visa's New Partnership

In the US, Visa will link Montilise with its Debit Processing Service operations to provide person-to-person payments, mobile alerts, promotional offers and remote deposit capture. 

Visa is also turning its sights overseas. The card network hopes to introduce mobile transit ticketing and other services to international markets. In addition, it recently acquired Fundamo, a mobile payments provider based in South Africa, in order to expand its products to the underbanked and unbanked in the international community. Fundamo represents only one aspect of Visa’s foray into the mobile payment world: recently, it bought a stake in Square Inc, which lets smartphones accept credit and debit card payments.

Retail credit cards trade rewards for data

Visa’s promised offer of promotional details sent to cell phones is already undergoing a field test: in April, the network paired up with Gap to push location-based discounts and promotions via text message. When enrolled customers use their Visa cards to complete transactions that meet certain criteria (shopping on a certain day, at a certain time or in a certain zip code, for example), they are sent Gap promotional offers that they can redeem by showing the text messages on their mobile phones.

took a hit when the Credit CARD Act required anyone without an income to have a co-signer on the card, cutting down on in-store applications. However, this deal isn’t specific to the Gap credit card, and Visa gets more value than simply interchange fees or interest rates. Gap is eager to get the data provided by the enrolled customers, and will likely pay for the privilege. "[The Visa partnership] provided us insight into our enrolled consumers that we never had in the past, which improved the targeting of our promotional programs, timing of communications and allowed us to tailor offers,” – interchange and interest rates – and more on alternative methods like card fees or partnerships.

Kids and Money: Is a Prepaid Debit Card a Good Idea?

Payment with plastic has become the standard in our society. Even if you don’t use credit, chances are that you swipe a debit card. Getting used the idea of paying with plastic, and learning how to deal with money that is more abstract than cash, is important. Teenagers need to learn how to track their spending, even when they don’t hand over cash. This important lesson is one of the reasons that we are seeing a rise in marketing for prepaid debit cards .

But are prepaid debit cards really the answer?

The biggest advantage to a prepaid debit card is that it provides a way for you limit your child’s ability to spend money. A specific amount of money is loaded on to the card, and when your teen spends the money, further transactions are denied until the card is reloaded with funds. You can get access to account details, so that you can see where your child is spending his or her money.

All of this creates a situation where your teenager can learn about money management and paying with plastic in a responsible manner. You can encourage your child to use a personal finance application to track his or her spending, and to track when more is added to the prepaid debit card. It can be a good way to get practice, without the risk of going into debt.

The main problem I have with prepaid credit cards is that they come with fees. Lots and lots of fees. You have an activation fee. Most prepaid debit cards come with monthly service fees. Some cards will charge you a fee if you use an ATM (even the issuer’s ATM) to check your balance. You even pay a fee when you reload the card. All of these fees start to add up. You could easily pay more than $100 a year in fees on a prepaid debit card.

Instead of getting a prepaid debit card for your teenager, perhaps you could open a joint checking account. Put your child’s name on the account first, but make it a truly joint account. I had a joint checking account with my mother from the time I was 12 until I married at 22. (I did open my own primary account at a local credit union when I went to college, but I kept the joint account as well, for just in case.)

I wrote my own checks and made withdrawals from ATMs. (This was before debit cards as payment became popular. Have I dated myself?) My mom received a copy of my bank statement, so she could check up on me, and provide guidance. She taught me to track my spending and reconcile my records with my bank statement every month.

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