Mango Money: My New Favorite Prepaid Card

Mango is my new favorite prepaid card.

One of the points that most people fail to understand about prepaid debit cards is that they are not merely about cost. Sure, a low-cost card is very important. However, these cards need to be more than affordable. They need to do things.

Good prepaid is not cheap prepaid.

Mango is currently the closest thing out there to a prepaid card that would allow a person to tap a broad range of financial products. Mango has offered discounts on renter’s insurance for some time. Five thousand dollars worth of coverage in North Carolina can be purchased for $7.50 per month.

Now Mango is helping people get involved in investing. The relationship between Mango and its investment partner, GoalMine, is not clear. However, Goal Mine is clearly a fit.

An account holder has to put down a minimum of twenty-five dollars to open an account. After that, the system is set up in a way that is favorable for a person on a tight budget. GoalMine cross-subsidized transaction costs through higher monthly maintenance fees. It is free to buy or sell a position. Goal Mine makes up for that by taking an expense fee of between 1.12 and 1.4 percent. For someone with a limited investment budget, that kind of fee schedule is going to be far less costly. It is also going to be functionally liquid. If it costs nothing to sell, then people won’t be put in a spot if they need to get their cash back out of their account.

The investment options are not that complicated. There are two offerings:

• The Stock Mutual Fund
• The Bond Mutual Fund

I do not see any offering with a VIX or a double reverse ETF.

Times have been tough for the last few years, but they have not been as bad if you had money in the stock market. The Dow is back to where it was before Lehman Brothers imploded. On the other hand, unemployment is still high and housing prices are still depressed.

There are more reasons to like Mango:

• Mango has an extensive financial literacy program. Check out their blog.
• Mango has a savings account that pays six percent interest.
• Mango has a physical branch.

The majority of long-term prepaid card users (particularly those with direct deposit enabled on their cards) have no bank account at all.