Actually paying NS customer’s money to encourage them to save clearly demonstrates that NetSpend has, in their heart, their customers best interests. They do more to educate cardholders about financial literacy then any other GPR company, and offering a FREE interest bearing savings account is a powerful example of that. Some companies claim to care about their customers financial situation, but NetSpend demonstrates it.

I like the idea of trying to determine which GPR cards are better than others and for developing a framework for evaluation those cards. It may be to simplistic, however, to just characterize “good” or “bad” cards based solely on interchange revenue.

For example, you cite overdrafts as “penalties” because, presumably, I pay interest on my card advance if I avail myself of that service. But then, what do you call the interest that I can receive when I put my money into an interest bearing savings account on a NetSpend card? The NS savings account is entirely FREE to me and my money earns three times the interest that I would get at my bank savings account. Do you consider this interest a non-penalty and take account of it in your characterization of good cards?