Innovative Payments Association
  • About Us
    • Our Team
    • Board of Directors
    • Members
    • Partnerships
  • News & Events
    • Non-Member Newsletter
    • Newsroom
    • Events
    • Blog
    • Podcast
  • Member Resources
    • Glossaries & Reports
    • GRWG
    • Recordings
    • Government Update
    • State Legislative Tracker
    • Financial Crimes Investigators
  • Issues & Advocacy
    • Comment Letters
    • Payments Litigation
    • Current Issues >
      • Earned Wage Access
      • Fraud Prevention
      • Prepaid Rule
    • Ongoing Issues >
      • Arbitration
      • Artificial Intelligence
      • Banking as a Service
      • Brokered Deposits
      • CFPB
      • Covid Response
      • Durbin Amendment
      • FDIC & OCC
      • Privacy Legislation
      • Unclaimed Property
  • Join the IPA
    • IPA Wins
  • Boot Camp
Member Login   |   Join the IPA
Member Login   |   Join the IPA

Blog

Prepaid’s Public-Private Partnership to Help Feed the Hungry

8/21/2018

 

In the latest episode of the Power of Prepaid Podcast, the NBPCA talks with Kurt Helwig, president and CEO of the Electronic Funds Transfer Association (EFTA), and Amy Duncan, the director of project management at CDP, Inc. and the chair of the EFTA’s egovernment payments council. We discuss how prepaid is used to implement Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) to make it easier and less expensive for governments to distribute benefits.

EBT is used for a number of programs, but the largest by dollar volume is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP. It provides funds to low-income individuals and families to use for food purchases and is restricted to prevent the funds for being used on other types of goods. EBT is used in all 50 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Guam. EBT has been implemented in all States since June of 2004.

The USDA has been working to expand acceptance of EBT at farmers’ markets around the country as a way of promoting healthy eating and local agriculture. States also are promoting its use. Maine recently passed a law to encourage SNAP benefits recipients to shop at farmers’ markets. The law calls for farmers’ markets to get equipment for accepting electronic benefits and for recipients of benefits to be educated about the benefits of shopping at farmers’ markets

In the episode, we also talk about the Women, Infants, and Children program, which provides supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, and to infants and children up to age five who are found to be at nutritional risk. Recipients receive prescriptions for supplemental food and are provided with a benefits card that is filtered to only allow the funds on the card to be spent in accordance with the rules of the program.

If you want to learn more about the EFTA, you can visit their Web site at: https://efta.org/

To learn more about the size and segments of the government benefits market, please see the Federal Reserve’s Report to Congress on Government-Administered, General Use Prepaid Cards (August 2018).

To see what companies operate EBT programs in the various states, you can visit the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service EBT Highlights Site.


Comments are closed.

    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018

    Categories

    All
    Member Profiles
    News
    Podcast
    Power Of Prepaid
    Prepaid
    Small Business
    Webinar

    RSS Feed

Contact Us   |   Member Resources

IPA

110 Chestnut Ridge Rd, Suite 111
Montvale, NJ 07645
(202) 548-7200
Save The Date 
Innovative Payments Conference​
April 29 - May 1, 2026 

IPA Info

Home
​​About Us
Advocacy
Newsroom​
Contact Us

IPA Resources

IPA News & Events
Payments Podcast
Blog​
​Events


Safe Shopping
Consumer Resources if You've Been Scammed
© COPYRIGHT 2025 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. | Privacy Policy
  • About Us
    • Our Team
    • Board of Directors
    • Members
    • Partnerships
  • News & Events
    • Non-Member Newsletter
    • Newsroom
    • Events
    • Blog
    • Podcast
  • Member Resources
    • Glossaries & Reports
    • GRWG
    • Recordings
    • Government Update
    • State Legislative Tracker
    • Financial Crimes Investigators
  • Issues & Advocacy
    • Comment Letters
    • Payments Litigation
    • Current Issues >
      • Earned Wage Access
      • Fraud Prevention
      • Prepaid Rule
    • Ongoing Issues >
      • Arbitration
      • Artificial Intelligence
      • Banking as a Service
      • Brokered Deposits
      • CFPB
      • Covid Response
      • Durbin Amendment
      • FDIC & OCC
      • Privacy Legislation
      • Unclaimed Property
  • Join the IPA
    • IPA Wins
  • Boot Camp