The Top General Purpose Reloadable Prepaid Card? It’s the Serve Card, Says Researcher Javelin

The general-purpose reloadable prepaid card market is expanding fast as audiences as diverse as the underbanked population and frequent business travelers adopt the products for their convenience and as alternatives or complements to bank accounts. Now the Serve Cash Back Card has earned a first-place finish in Javelin Strategy & Research’s inaugural effort at ranking the products available in the market.

Announced Thursday, the results rank 10 “major GPR card programs, with the Target Circle Card coming in second and the PayPal Prepaid Card third, according to the announcement from the San Francisco-based research firm. A listing of the remaining contenders was not immediately available.

InComm Payments distributes the Serve Card after acquiring the program for undisclosed terms in 2018 from American Express Co., which remains the issuer. AmEx in 2010 had acquired Revolution Money, the original platform for the product, renaming it Serve.

Serve managed to finish on top in Javelin’s evaluation even though it did not come in first “in any single category,” because of “consistent top-three rankings across all categories,” according to the firm. Javelin says it evaluated contenders on 51 criteria and in three categories—ongoing experience, cost, and additional benefits and features. “Serve topped the list for its well-balanced features and consumer-centric approach,” Javelin’s notice says.

The importance of prepaid cards lies in their appeal to consumers looking for card products that can help them stick to a budget, Javelin says. “These cards serve as an important entry point for consumers who are shut out of traditional credit and debit card programs and also serve as a source of additional account access for those looking to budget their regular spending,” Jordan Hirschfield, director of prepaid payments at Javelin, says in a statement.

Hirschfield added that users will drop a reloadable prepaid card readily if they regard the reload process to be “inconvenient” or if the program’s fees are seen to be too high.

General purpose reloadable cards accounted for a total load value of $234 billion worldwide last year, a figure that’s growing at a compounded rate of 7%, according to Javelin’s research. The prepaid card market, including general-purpose reloadable cards, is expected to generate $14.4 trillion in volume globally by 2032, up from $2.5 trillion in 2022, according to estimates and forecasts from Allied Market Research.