Report

How Are U.S. Consumers Using General Purpose Reloadable Prepaid Cards? Are They Being Used as Substitutes for Checking Accounts?

Abstract: Owners of general purpose reloadable prepaid cards (GPR) who do not have checking accounts comprise 4.8 percent of U.S. adults, according to the 2012 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice. This report explores two important aspects of prepaid card use: Do owners of GPR prepaid cards who lack checking accounts use these cards differently than those who have checking accounts? Are these cards substituting for payment services that have traditionally been provided only via traditional checking accounts? Holding income and demographic factors constant, U.S. consumers without checking accounts (those who are "unbanked") are significantly more likely to own a GPR card than consumers with checking accounts (those who are "banked"). In addition, among GPR card holders a larger fraction of unbanked consumers than banked consumers receive their income directly to their GPR card. Controlling for the number of payment instruments they adopt, unbanked consumers are not more likely than banked consumers to use a prepaid card.

Keywords: prepaid cards; nonbank payment services; bank‐like services; Survey of Consumer Payment Choice; Diary of Consumer Payment Choice;

JEL Classification: G23;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

Part of Series: Consumer Payments Research Data Reports

Publication Date: 2015-06-01

Number: 2015-03