Friday, August 13, 2010

Green Dot: Tight Credit Driving New Customers

Pasadena-based Green Dot, the provider of prepaid credit cards which recently debuted on the markets, reported its quarterly earnings Thursday, saying that the tight financing environment continues to drive new customers to the company. On a earnings call discussing its second quarter results, CEO Steve Streit said that it is seeing "significant" new card activations at both Walmart and other retailers, attributing the rise to both a tight credit card environment and increasingly expensive bank pricing models. Green Dot's cards are used by low-income consumers who cannot qualify for standard credit cards, and often do not have bank accounts. The firm said it had net income of $12.5M on operating revenues of $90.3M for the three months ended June 30, 2010, up from $12.5M in net income on operating revenues of $62.9M for the same quarter last year. Green Dot went IPO on July 22nd, and was trading around $46.09 Friday morning. The firm had debuted on the market at $36.00. The firm's IPO is one of a number of successful exits for investors from Southern California firms in the last few months, and was one of the most successful exits ever for local angels.