Prepaid Cards

If you or your parents are hesitating about a college credit card because of worries about you piling up too much credit card debt, prepaid student credit cards offer a convenient, spending-controlled alternative to your typical college credit cards.

MetaBank Prepaid Credit Cards*

MetaBank, a federally chartered savings association, offers several choices of low-cost prepaid credit cards that come packed with features like Credit Builder†, free online bill pay, and easy access to more than 1 million ATMs nationwide.

And you can rest easy knowing you’re dealing with a trusted company: These MetaBank credit card programs are all accredited by the Better Business Bureau.

AccountNow Prepaid MasterCard and Prepaid Visa

  • $9.95 monthly fee
  • NO overdraft fees
  • NO minimum balance requirements
  • NO credit checks — guaranteed approval‡ with verification of your identity
  • FREE unlimited purchase transactions when you use your signature
  • FREE online statements and account access
  • FREE online bill pay
  • FREE Credit Builder‡ service when you use online bill pay

You can use your AccountNow Prepaid Visa or MasterCard anywhere that Visa and MasterCard debit cards are accepted, and all your card purchases are free whenever you use your signature.

Your AccountNow prepaid card also helps keep you and your money protected with multiple safeguards:

  • Visa and MasterCard zero-liability policies help protect you from fraudulent use of your card.§
  • FDIC backing: Funds on AccountNow prepaid credit cards are federally insured by the FDIC up to $100,000.
  • Free mobile text alerts: Sign up to get notifications sent to your cell phone with balance updates, deposit confirmations, and other account info, so you always know what’s going on with your card and your money.

AccountNow Prepaid MasterCard
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AccountNow Prepaid Visa
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SilverCard Prepaid MasterCard

  • $3.95 monthly fee
  • NO overdraft fees
  • NO minimum balance requirements
  • NO credit checks — guaranteed approval‡ with verification of your identity
  • FREE unlimited purchase transactions when you use your signature
  • FREE online statements and 24-hour online account access

With its low monthly fee, free signature transactions, and global acceptance — you can use the SilverCard anywhere that MasterCard debit cards are accepted — the SilverCard prepaid MasterCard offers a low-cost way to have the convenience of a credit card without the dangers of credit card debt.

You can also take advantage of the SilverCard’s other freebies:

  • FREE direct deposit: Have your paychecks deposited directly to your SilverCard account — it’s easy, convenient, and free to set up. If you have a PayPal account, you can also transfer money from your PayPal account to your SilverCard at no charge.
  • FREE daily account alerts: Sign up for the SilverCard’s free alerts to get a daily e-mail or text message with your current card balance.
  • MasterCard zero-liability policy protects you from fraudulent use of your card.§

SilverCard Prepaid MasterCard
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Bancorp Bank Prepaid Credit Cards*

An FDIC-insured, publicly held financial services institution, The Bancorp Bank is one of the top five issuers of prepaid credit cards in the country.

Vision Premier Prepaid Visa

  • $0.95 weekly fee (fully refundable each month if, in that month, either you complete at least 15 transactions or you use direct deposit to load a minimum of $500 to your card)
  • NO credit checks — guaranteed approval‡ with verification of your identity
  • FREE unlimited purchase transactions when you use your signature
  • FREE online statements and 24-hour online account access
  • FREE transfers from a PayPal account to your Vision Premier account
  • FREE direct deposit

The Vision Premier card gives you both online and on-the-go convenience: Shop and pay bills online, or withdraw cash when you need it at any of the millions of ATMs worldwide that display the Visa or STAR logo. And you can stay up-to-date on your account from wherever you are with your Vision Premier card’s free mobile alerts:

  • FREE daily mobile alerts: Get daily transaction alerts e-mailed or texted to you.
  • Visa zero-liability policy protects you from fraudulent use of your card.§
  • Click-n-Pay online bill pay: Pay your bills as you go, or schedule automatic payments to avoid late fees. You can even send electronic payments to merchants that don’t accept credit cards — with your Vision Card Click-n-Pay, a paper check can be issued on your behalf.

Vision Premier Prepaid Visa
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Prepaid Credit Cards vs. Credit Cards

Unlike credit-based student credit cards, which let you spend money (that you may not actually have) before you have to pay that money back, prepaid student credit cards require you to load money on the card before you can spend it. By having you prepay your plastic, prepaid credit cards help you limit your spending to cash you’ve already set aside, thereby preventing you from ringing up a bunch of credit card debt that you can’t afford to repay later.

Some prepaid college credit cards also include a credit-reporting feature to help you establish your credit history. Issuers of some prepaid credit cards will report payments you make on monthly bills like utilities, cables, and rent. With other prepaid cards, you may be billed a small fee in monthly installments, and your card issuer will report your installment payments to the credit bureaus, helping you build a credit payment history.

Advantages of Prepaid Credit Cards

  • No credit card debt: Since you’re prepaying your purchases by using a prepaid card, you’re not amassing a bunch of credit card debt that you may not be able to pay back later.
  • Made for a student budget: Prepaid student credit cards help you control your spending so you can stick to your budget. Since you’ll need cash on hand in order to prepay your card, the money you can load onto your prepaid card should be only with what you can afford to spend.
  • No interest charges on purchases: Prepaid credit cards simply debit your purchases from funds you’ve already loaded, unlike standard credit cards, on which your card purchases are subject to daily interest charges until you’ve paid them off.
  • Protection from overdraft and over-the-limit fees: Although there are rare instances in which a preauthorized or manual transaction may put your over your available card balance on a prepaid card, in most cases, you won’t be able to spend more than what you’ve loaded on your card — which means you’ll avoid expensive over-the-limit penalties and overdraft fees.

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Choosing the Right Prepaid Credit Card

Just like the many choices you have with standard college credit cards, prepaid credit cards can carry multiple different features, fees, and benefits, and it’s a good idea to look through all your options to find the prepaid card that’s the best fit for you.

Here are some things to look for when you’re comparing prepaid college credit cards:

Card Fees

Most prepaid credit cards charge an annual fee, which might range from $50 to $150. Annual fees are easy to compare, but you’ll also want to look at what other fees each card issuer lists.

The fees on prepaid credit cards can be different than those you would typically see on other student credit cards. Keep in mind, though, you’re usually not paying interest on purchases you make with a prepaid card the way you would with a standard credit card.

Besides the annual fee, here are a few of the more common fees to look for on prepaid credit cards:

  • Setup or activation fee: Usually a one-time fee charged when you first get your prepaid card.
  • Reload fees: Some prepaid college credit cards may charge you a small fee each time you load more money on your card.
  • Usage fees: A few prepaid credit cards will tack on a surcharge every time you use your card. Some cards limit their usage fees to certain situations — when you use your card number to make an online purchase, for example, or when you withdraw cash from an ATM.
  • Inactivity fees: On the flip side, some prepaid credit cards will charge you if you don’t use your card and just let it sit. Many inactivity fees will kick in only when you haven’t used your card at all for 90 days, but some card issuers may have shorter inactivity periods.

Reloading Options

Since you’ll have to continually reload a prepaid credit card in order to be able to keep using it, you’ll want to make sure that your reloading options are both convenient and affordable.

  • What are all your different options for reloading your prepaid card? Can you reload online? over the phone?
  • Is there an auto-reload option that you can set up from your checking or savings account?
  • Is there a charge for reloading your card? If so, is it a flat fee, or do you get charged as a percentage of how much money you’re loading onto the card?
  • Are there any limitations on how often you can reload your card?

Credit-Reporting Features

One of the main reasons some students opt for a prepaid credit card is because they don’t have enough of a credit history established to qualify for credit-based student credit cards.

Prepaid college credit cards can allow you to establish a credit history that may eventually help you qualify for a credit-based college credit card, but only if they include some kind of reporting to the credit bureaus. Not all prepaid credit cards include credit reporting. Some prepaid cards function essentially as debit cards, with no payment activity being reported to the credit bureaus.

If you’re looking for prepaid student credit cards that can help you start building your credit history, make sure the prepaid cards you’re considering offer credit-reporting features.

Spending, Load, and Card Limits

If your plan is to be able to use your prepaid card in case of an emergency, you don’t want to wind up in a jam with emergency charges you can’t cover because of a daily spending limit or because you couldn’t load enough money on your card.

When you’re researching your prepaid card options, make sure to find out what kinds of max limits each card carries:

  • Card limit: How much money, total, can you load on the card? Is the card limit fixed, or will you be able to increase your card limit the longer you have the card and keep it in good standing?
  • Load limits: How much money can you load on the card at one time? Can you load your card multiple times in one day? Are there daily, weekly, or monthly limits on how much money you can load on the card or on how many times you can load it?
  • Spending limits: What’s the biggest charge you can run on the card at one time? If you use your card multiple times in one day, is there a daily dollar limit on your total charges? a weekly or monthly dollar limit? What about a limit on the number of times you can use your card in one day?
  • ATM and cash withdrawal limits: Is there a limit on how much cash you can withdraw at one time? For multiple smaller withdrawals, is there a daily dollar limit on the total amount you can withdraw? weekly dollar limit? monthly?

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Consumer Protections for Prepaid Credit Cards

One important point to note is that prepaid credit cards aren’t covered by the federal statutes that protect credit card users or by the new credit card legislation just signed into law by President Obama in May 2009 — the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act (Credit CARD Act of 2009).

Issuers of prepaid credit cards aren’t required, for example, to limit your losses from unauthorized use of your card if your prepaid card is ever lost or stolen. Prepaid card issuers are also not required to provide you with monthly statements detailing your card use.

Some prepaid card issuers, however, offer consumer protections and benefits like these voluntarily. When you’re selecting a prepaid card, look for cards like those from MetaBank that protect you by limiting your losses from unauthorized purchases and by offering you account statements that allow you to easily monitor the activity on your card.

 

* NextStudent is a marketer of prepaid credit cards and is not the issuer of any prepaid credit cards. All applications for prepaid credit cards are subject to approval. The cardholder benefits, terms, and conditions presented on this webpage are reliant on third-party information and may be subject to change without notice. Although NextStudent makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information we present to you, this information may not always be up-to-date or complete. When you click on links on this page that take you to a prepaid card application, you are leaving NextStudent.com and entering a website that NextStudent does not control. You will be submitting your information directly to the card issuer and not to NextStudent. We have provided these links for your convenience but do not endorse, are not responsible for, and make no guarantees or representations regarding any content, links, privacy policy, security policy, or information-collection practices of non-NextStudent websites, nor regarding any products or services provided by or through the card issuers, nor is NextStudent subject to any liability relating to any actions or omissions of these card issuers.

† Credit Builder is an optional service that provides a payment history to one or more national credit reporting agencies (the agencies can vary by card issuer). Credit Builder does not improve or repair your credit record, credit history, or credit rating, or provide advice or assistance for the improvement or repair of your credit record, credit history, or credit rating, nor does it guarantee any future offer of credit.

‡ The USA PATRIOT Act is a federal law that requires all financial institutions to obtain, verify, and record information that identifies each person who opens an account. When you open a prepaid card account, these card issuers will ask you to provide your name, address, date of birth, and other information that will allow them to reasonably identify you. These card issuers may also ask you to provide some form of identifying documentation (such as a driver’s license) as proof of identification. Guaranteed approval is contingent upon you successfully meeting this mandatory identification confirmation.

§ Certain conditions and exclusions apply; please see each card issuer’s terms and conditions for details.