Tarjeta Prepago | Mastercard or Visa

Few Spanish speakers search in Spanish for prepaid cards. The ones that do often type tarjeta prepago but come up with a bunch of prepaid phone card sites. If they want to find a tarjeta prepago MasterCard they have to type that phrase into the Google, Yahoo Search, or Bing. Or they can type Prepagada MasterCard.

Once they find what they are looking for, the site may not be in Spanish. Hopefully, the can read English. If they can't the best prepaid card for Spanish speakers is offered by MiCash.

PIN-debit cards interchange costs rise

The costs merchants pay on debit card transactions to cover the electronic interchange of financial data across the debit networks continues to rise. According to Digital Transactions, an industry magazine, the cost of the average $50 PIN-debit sale a small retailer quadrupled over the past decade (from '96-2007).

This means that merchants accepting PIN debit card prepaid or regular on typically the Visa or Mastercard branded networks paid an average of 40.1 cents. Ten years ago that amount was less than a dime.

What does this mean for consumers? It means the gap between the interchange rate charged to retailers for signature transactions vs. PIN transactions is narrowing. So they have less incentive to prefer and guide consumers to PIN transactions. They also may raise prices to recoup their costs.

Wal Mart Money Cards

Wal Mart Money Cards are reloadable prepaid cards. You can load them at a Wal Mart cashier for a $3 fee (if that location participates in this way to load) or by purchasing a Greendot MoneyPak at WalMart for $4.95. Greendot MoneyPaks are another easy way to load prepaid cards or prepaid credit cards. You can either call 1-800-GREENDOT or go to the greendot website. Here's how it works. You give the cashier the cash you want to put on your prepaid card plus the $4.95 fee. Then when you call or go online with Greendot, you give them your prepaid card number and the MoneyPak number you have in your hand, and within a few minutes, the balance on the MoneyPak will be transferred to your prepaid cards. Then you can throw away the MoneyPak because it is a one-time-use function for loading money on GPR cards.