Guest Blog Post: The 2018 Power of Prepaid

Guest Blog Post Written By:  Solana Cozzo, Head Prepaid and Inclusive Growth - North America Markets, Mastercard 

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of speaking at this year’s Power of Prepaid event in Washington DC. While a variety of interesting topics were discussed, it will come as no surprise to anyone that the hot topic this year was innovation.

NBPCA set the tone in the very first session by announcing its name change to Innovative Payments Association.

I spoke about "Next Gen Digital" and shared a formula that any business can apply to achieve innovation. It is based on the idea that the key to innovation is combining existing technologies. When you start with the emotional needs of consumers, and use techniques like design thinking, you can build truly consumer-centric products that solve real needs.

Greendot CEO @Steve Streit gave the "Innovations and Partnerships" keynote. He stressed the notion that the term ‘prepaid’ is limiting and he’s absolutely right - prepaid does have a perception problem. Many people think prepaid is just about gift cards, or solutions for the unbanked. This perception may be stopping businesses from seeing the true possibilities of prepaid as an enabler for innovation. The NBPCA name change depicts an encouraging and fresh start, but then again – it isn’t professionals working in prepaid we need to convince…