I'm less familiar with what the NCAA compliance might be around this topic, but are there any concerns that the IRS may treat prepaid/preloaded expense cards as taxable to the recipient?

I don't deal with athletics...only law...but definitely a relevant question these days!

I have met with Bank of America our Pcard provider and they have moved away from pre-paid cards and suggested using Zelle to send cash to students directly to their accounts. They just have a Bank account and register with Zelle. The athletics department didn't want to pay the fees associated with sending the payments and still giving cash advances to coaches and giving out cash and using the Pcard to pay for meals.

I know you said you're aware of the Commerce and US Bank prepaid card programs but just wanted to share that at University of San Diego we use the US Bank Prepaid Cards for all athlete per diems and it has worked well for us. The coaches were happy they didn't have to hand out cash anymore.

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville probably uses the same program as University of San Diego. It's been going for about 18 months and it's gotten us out of the cash handling business.

Steven and Kimberly, are you using the virtual/instant cards from US Bank that have to be loaded into a digital wallet or a physical card solution?

Currently, we're using a physical card. Looking into the digital wallet but haven't had an opportunity to use it yet.

We are using the physical US Bank Prepaid card program for Athletics at this time. We are also implementing the US Bank virtual/instant cards and will be piloting that with our School of Business for students traveling to conferences, etc. Depending on how that goes we would then make it more widely available.

At Wake Forest University we are using the US Bank Prepaid Reloadable cards for the Athletic per diems. The coaches love the fact they are not carrying cash to pass out. The students athletes are also enjoying the program, our one wish is that the card could be added to their mobile wallet. US Bank states that functionality is coming and we hope it will help reduce the amount of lost cards.

Texas State Technical College, we don't have athletics, but we do have a organization that's like athletics. And how we handle meals to the students, we utilize their reimbursement process through Student Accounting. Each has a Tech OneCard and if they don't it goes into their bank account, they get a certain amount the instructors designated for the entire trip not to exceed GSA rates. This is great because of the no one is having to deal with the cash handling. We are looking into the virtual card or the prepaid card for the students as an option but we are still explroing.

Great topic of discussion!

Can those using the US Bank prepaid card elaborate more on their process? We are transitioning to a new bank in 2024, FAEF, who offers a virtual credit card to be issued to a cardholder (students, staff or faculty) which has a credit limit and timeframe it is active. At the end of the timeframe, any unspent funds as determined by the credit limit are lost to the cardholder. We're hoping this is our solution to cash advances for athletics, student clubs, etc. There are A LOT of logistics we still need to consider, test and work out though. I'm interested to hear other's experiences and solutions as we all try to transition away from cash. Thanks!

I work in the athletics department at Boston College. We use Bank of America and transitioned from a prepaid debit card to an electronic per diem payment method during the spring. We upload the information to a system from Bank of America and Bank of American will send the payment through Zelle or PayPal. It is required for the students athletes to have one or the other set up for these payments. It has made a huge difference in putting more responsibility on the student athletes to not those their prepaid cards and they always have access to their funds through their personal accounts.

I work at Oregon State University. We implemented Corporate Quick Pay through JP Morgan for per diem payments to student athletes and coaches over a year ago. JP Morgan recently transitioned to Concourse and we officially starting using it last week.

Renee, how has Concourse been working for you? Can you say more about the process?