PayPal Launches Prepaid Cards

PayPal released its first prepaid card yesterday, allowing users to easily load cash into their PayPal account as funds that can be used for online purchases.

PayPal's getting into the prepaid card business, it announced on its blog yesterday, with the new PayPal My Cash Card. The new prepaid cards were released with the help of InComm, a prepaid products provider, and will be available today at more than 30,000 U.S. retail locations, PayPal said on its blog.

Patrick Gauthier, PayPal's head of emerging retail services, said in the blog post that the new initiative would provide an easy way for PayPal users to load cash to their PayPal account for use at online retailers. Gauthier wrote that PayPal customers had been asking for new ways to fund their PayPal accounts. The prepaid cards will help satisfy that need, Gauthier said.

The news of the My Cash Card launch comes in the middle of the most successful holiday shopping season for PayPal ever in e-commerce purchases.

To load cash to their PayPal account, users log into the PayPal My Cash Card website after purchasing their prepaid card, and then load the funds to their account using a PIN number associated with their card.

Jonathan Camhi has been an associate editor with Bank Systems & Technology since 2012. He previously worked as a freelance journalist in New York City covering politics, health and immigration, and has a master's degree from the City University of New York's Graduate School ... View Full Bio