NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, January 13, 2014

According to a recent Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) survey, more than 68 million Americans live day to day in a cash-only economy. They pay their bills and buy groceries with cash and what money they save is stuffed under the proverbial mattress.

They are classified as unbanked or underbanked, meaning they have little to no access to traditional banking services.

For decades, the financially underserved have had to make their payments and access their money the hard way. Now, however, that’s changing with the growing use of payroll cards. Employers are increasingly moving away from issuing paper checks to paying their unbanked workers with prepaid payroll cards. In 2012 alone, more than $34 billion was loaded onto 4.6 million active payroll cards, according to the Aite Group. By 2017, it is expected that $69 billion will be loaded onto 10.8 million cards.