Prepaid Visa / Mastercard a viable alternative to mainstream credit cards

Pre-paid MasterCard and Visa cards become an alternative to credit, debit cards

While credit cards and bank-machine cards have long been favored by many shoppers because of their ease of use and wide acceptance among retailers, a new generation of cash alternatives is becoming available.

Affiliates of MasterCard and Visa have begun offering pre-paid cards that don’t provide you with credit or draw directly from your bank account but in other ways work much like the more familiar cards in your wallet.

While these payment methods do offer certain advantages over credit cards – no need to have an approved credit history, for instance – they also charge a variety of fees and come with certain restrictions that may limit their appeal.

The Visa Wired Plastic Card is a reloadable pre-paid card for purchases from merchants that take Visa/MasterCard. They can also do cash withdrawals from bank machines on the Cirrus network.

Unlike credit cards, however, the pre-paid cards don’t charge interest since you’re not borrowing money from the issuer. On the other hand, the money loaded onto the card doesn’t earn you interest either.

Check out these recommended pre-paid credit cards.