Green Dot 2013 Annual Report Download - page 12

5
on social media and digital channels such as popular destinations for mobile application downloads, as well as financial
sponsorships aimed at creating awareness of the product. We focus on raising brand awareness while educating our
customers.
We also design, and provide to our retail distributors for use in their stores, innovative packaging and in-store
displays that we believe generate consumer interest and differentiate our products from other card products on their
racks. Our packaging and displays help ensure that our products are promoted in a consistent, visual manner that is
designed to invite consumers to browse and learn about our products, and thus to increase our sales opportunities.
We employ a number of strategies to improve cardholder retention and increase card usage. These strategies are
based on research we conduct on an ongoing basis to understand consumer behavior and improve consumer loyalty
and satisfaction. For example, we use our points of contact with customers (e.g., our website, email, interactive voice
response system, or IVR, and mobile applications) to educate our customers and promote new card features. We also
provide incentives for behaviors, such as cash reloading, establishing payroll direct deposit and making frequent
purchases with our cards, that we believe increase cardholder retention. In particular, we believe that our fee waiver
program, which eliminates monthly maintenance fees for customers who deposit $1,000 or more to the card or conduct
at least 30 transactions with the card during a monthly billing cycle, contributes significantly to cardholder retention
within certain of our customer segments.
Marketing to Retail Distributors
When marketing our prepaid financial services to potential new retail distributors, we highlight several key benefits,
including our leading national brand, our in-store presence and merchandising expertise, our cash reload network, the
profitability to them of our products and our commitment to national television and other advertising. In addition, we
communicate the peripheral benefits of our products, such as their ability to generate additional foot traffic and sales
in their stores and higher average purchase amount per transaction.
Marketing to Our Network Acceptance Members
We market our reload network to a broad range of banks, third-party processors, program managers and others
that have uses for our reload network’s cash transfer technology. When marketing to potential network acceptance
members, we highlight the key benefits of our cash loading network, including the breadth of our distribution capabilities,
our leadership position in the industry, the profitability to them of our products, consumer satisfaction owing to the
consistency in the user experience and our commitment to national television and other advertising and marketing
support.
Customer Service
We provide customer service for all GPR card and gift card programs that we manage and for GoBank and
MoneyPak on a 24-hour per day, 365-day per year basis, primarily through third-party service providers in Guatemala
and the Philippines, and also through our staff in the United States. All card activations, reloads, support and lost/stolen
inquiries are handled online and through various toll-free numbers at these locations. We also operate our own call
center at our headquarters for handling customer and corporate escalations. Customer service is provided in both
English and Spanish.
Competition
We operate in highly competitive and rapidly changing markets, which have become increasingly competitive.
Unlike many companies operating in the prepaid financial services industry, we provide simple, low-cost and convenient
money management solutions to a broad based of U.S. consumers through the combination of our innovative products
and services, broad retail distribution and proprietary technology. Consequently, we compete against the full spectrum
of companies across the prepaid financial services industry as well as companies providing traditional banking services.
In addition to the direct competitors described below, we compete for access to retail distribution channels and for the
attention of consumers at the retail level.
Prepaid Card Issuance and Program Management
Through Green Dot Bank, we offer Green Dot-branded and several co-branded GPR card programs and Visa-
branded gift cards. We compete against the full spectrum of providers of GPR cards. We also compete with traditional
providers of financial services, such as banks that offer demand deposit accounts and debit card products, and card
issuers that offer credit cards, private label retail cards and gift cards. Many of these institutions are substantially larger
and have greater resources, larger and more diversified customer bases and greater brand recognition than we do.
Many of these companies can also leverage their extensive customer bases and adopt aggressive pricing policies to
gain market share. Our primary competitors in the prepaid card issuance and program management market are
traditional credit, debit and prepaid card account issuers and prepaid card program managers like American Express,