Government-Administered, General-Use Prepaid Cards
Federal Reserve - Report
December 2025
Section 1075 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which added section 920 to the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, requires the Federal Reserve Board (Board) to report annually to Congress on the prevalence of the use of general-use prepaid cards in federal, state, or local government-administered payment programs and on the interchange fees and cardholder fees charged with respect to the use of such cards.1 This report provides information for calendar year 2024. Appendix A provides background on the survey’s methodology, and appendix B contains historical data collected from the survey.
The Board distributed a survey to 18 issuers to collect prevalence-of-use and fee data on federal, state, and local government-administered payment programs that used network-branded general-use prepaid cards as a method to disburse funds in calendar year 2024.2 All 18 issuers responded to the survey, reporting data for approximately 1,200 programs.3 The Board also collected a limited amount of prevalence-of-use data from the U.S. Department of Treasury as well as additional prevalence-of-use data related to electronic benefit transfer (EBT) transactions from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and two nonbank financial institutions that process EBT transactions.4 The data collected represent programs from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.5
See full report:
Source: https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/government-prepaid-report-202512.pdf
See earlier reports: https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/government-prepaid-executive.htm