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Data for today’s episode is provided by Mercator Advisory Group’s Report: Necessity as the Mother of Invention: Prepaid Cards Find New Use Cases in the COVID-19 Pandemic
The Use of Prepaid Cards for Vaccine Incentives:
- As of July 2021, nearly 160 million U.S. residents, or 48% of the country’s population, are fully vaccinated.
- In their efforts to overcome vaccine hesitancy, state and local governments have unveiled and utilized a variety of vaccine incentive schemes.
- Both open and closed-loop prepaid cards have played an important role in these vaccine incentive programs.
- California’s “Vax for the Win” Program, which was launched in May 2021 to encourage residents to get vaccinated, includes two million $50 digital prepaid cards.
- North Carolina is offering any resident who is 18 years or older a $25 prepaid Mastercard following their first dose of a vaccine.
- In Detroit, Michigan, anyone who drives a resident to a vaccine site is eligible for a $50 prepaid card through the city’s incentive program.
About Report
The COVID-19 pandemic radically changed the way that people shopped and paid for purchases. Under these new circumstances, the U.S. prepaid market experienced significant innovation and developed new use cases for its products. As vaccines have been made available but uptake has lagged, state and local governments have made use of prepaid cards to incentivize vaccination. The pandemic has caused significant hardship for many communities in the U.S., and prepaid cards have played an important role in the distribution of financial aid from both government and charitable institutions to those in need. Moving forward, the prepaid market has numerous opportunities to contribute to the process of economic recovery in the United States.
