By John G. Edwards
Las Vegas Business Press
Do you use a rubber band and your pocket rather than a bank account to store cash?
Or do you hide money under the mattress? Are you too busy to balance your checking account? Want to give your kid in college a debit card with limited balances? Need a safe way to carry cash for a trip?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, Nevada Federal Credit Union and some of the country’s biggest retailers have a product designed for you. It’s a prepaid debit card. It functions similarly to a standard bank debit or ATM card. Unlike a checking account, however, you can’t be dinged for bounced checks, because prepaid debit cards don’t cover purchases for more than the amount.
“It’s like a bank account in your pocket,” said Jerry Welch, chairman and chief executive officer of nFinanSe of Tampa, Fla.
He runs a startup company that offers prepaid debit cards and spoke to me during a recent trade association conference in Las Vegas. A nFinanSe spokeswoman said the company sells its prepaid cards in Nevada through Coinstar, which has vending machines that convert coins into paper money.
Welch sees a giant market for his debit card products. A 2009 government survey shows that 30 million households or about 60 million adults are unbanked or underbanked. Underbanked households include those who have a bank account but use check cashing services, payday loans, rent to own or pawnshops.
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