What is the Green Dot Network? What was the genesis behind it?
The Green Dot Network (GDN) was invented in 2002 as the prepaid industry’s first cash reload service. It was available at locations with flexible hours to provide an easy, low cost way for consumers to load money into their prepaid card accounts. While many Green Dot customers fund their accounts through Direct Deposit, many of our customers do not work for employers that offer Direct Deposit and instead receive payroll in cash or by check. We saw this as a larger business opportunity and expanded GDN in 2005 to offer cash reload services to third party programs, such as AccountNow, RushCard and H&R Block accounts. We further expanded the service in 2009 by offering the ability to load cash to online accounts such as PayPal. Today, GDN is recognized as America’s leading reload network used by all Green Dot Bank programs and also by more than 400 card programs and other partners to facilitate cash reloads and transfers through a massive network of more than 100,000 retail locations.
Green Dot offers a variety of cash reload services through its ‘@ the Register’ platform. What differentiates these cash reload services from others available in the marketplace?
A cash reload network is only successful if it provides customers with the right locations and the right options. Our locations spans across the US at mass retailers, pharmacies, convenient stores, dollar stores and check cashing locations. We are anywhere a customer might be. Our ‘@ the Register’ technology is powered by Green Dot’s highly scalable platform and offers customers various methods of transacting in cash at retail. Green Dot’s Swipe Interface Technology functionality leverages the use of a plastic card, it can be used to reload a prepaid card, deposit money into a bank account or pay a credit card bill. This technology also offers the ability to set a different retail fee for individual programs. Our recently-announced mobile and web-enabled barcode generation system provide an alternative to the plastic card. The technology can be embedded into our partner’s customer touch points or be accessed via a Green Dot-hosted portal, it also provides the ability to deliver on-demand account-level pricing. Lastly, with the addition of our retail cash disbursement services, we now have the ability to facilitate cash out to the penny at a retail location. This service has many use cases – a prepaid cardholder needing emergency cash while waiting for replacement card, a card provider using it for refunds as oppose to sending a check, or for customers to pick up their tax refunds. The possibilities are endless. We are intensely focused on growing the value, uniqueness and processing capabilities of GDN by expanding its breadth of services and partnering with all types of businesses to facilitate instant cash movement.
Many would argue that cash is a dying payment method and the U.S. is moving toward a cashless society. How does Green Dot respond to this argument?
Cash is still widely used and consumers choose to use cash more frequently than any other form of payment. This is especially true of low- and moderate-income Americans – one of Green Dot’s target demographics – who lack access to alternative forms of payment or find them too costly or difficult to obtain. According to a recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, cash makes up the single largest share of consumer transaction activity, at 40 percent. The prevalence and consumer preference for cash transactions is a catalyst for GDN’s constant evolution beyond just cash loading to prepaid cards. We have partners in a wide range of verticals and work closely with them to achieve our larger vision of helping businesses and consumers get their money to the places they want it and to make it easier for them to use and access it.
What does the future hold of the Green Dot Network? How will it continue to evolve?
We are very excited about the future of GDN. It has come a long way since it was first developed twelve years ago and we’re deeply committed to its continued evolution, growth and success. The next evolution of GDN will take us beyond the world of cash movement into money movement. For customers that use GDN to get funds into their accounts, we will have additional options other than cash. We will also repurpose all our assets – the integration points we have which facilitates millions of cash loads a year, our ability to issue prepaid/debit accounts, our capability to facilitate cash out at retail and having our own bank, into a disbursement platform for any companies that have a payout need, such as insurance payouts, disability claims, tax refunds, etc.
