The following is the second in a series by Berkeley Payments’ Founder & Executive Vice Chairman Jonathon Hamburg exploring how prepaid has evolved from simple cards to programmable financial infrastructure, and what that means for the future of payments.
Click here to read the first article in the series.
Part 2: Scaling Prepaid: What It Took to Reach $1B in Loads (and What’s Next)
From Pilot Programs to Billions in Loads
As recently as a few years ago, prepaid was still thought of as a convenient alternative to cash or checks. It was useful, but it was more of a niche offering. Today, it’s a core part of the money-movement infrastructure.
At Berkeley, we’ve watched - and helped - prepaid evolve from tactical payout solutions to full-scale financial ecosystems supporting payroll, lending, relief, and banking. Hitting $1 billion in loads isn’t just a milestone for one client. It’s proof that prepaid has matured into an enterprise-grade system capable of handling massive transaction volumes with the same compliance and scalability as traditional rails.
In this second part of the Prepaid 3.0 series, we’ll look at what it took to reach that level of scale, why large institutions are accelerating their move toward prepaid, and what comes next as real-time and configurable payments become the new operating standard.
The $1B Moment: Proof of Scale
When Canada’s EQ Bank set out to extend its Savings Plus Account to include everyday spending, it faced a choice. It could build a debit card infrastructure from scratch, or it could partner with a proven payments platform. They chose the latter and within months - not years - the bank launched a reloadable prepaid card powered by Berkeley’s technology stack.
That card quickly surpassed $1 billion in customer loads, giving EQ Bank account holders instant, secure access to funds while maintaining full compliance and visibility.
For EQ Bank, prepaid became a strategic extension of their digital banking service.
The speed and success of this program underscore the shift that’s taking place in which prepaid rails are no longer the backup plan. Rather, they are the foundation that enterprises are choosing so that they can innovate and provide better services to thier customers faster than legacy systems allow.
How Prepaid Scales: From Concept to Enterprise-Grade
Scaling prepaid to billions in loads didn’t happen by accident. It was the result of years of disciplined infrastructure building, compliance leadership, and close collaboration with partners who demand performance and trust at every stage.
From compliance and security to operational reliability and real-world use cases, our growth at Berkeley has been driven by an enterprise mindset. We believe in designing it right, proving it works, and then scaling it confidently.
Compliance First - Always
To scale successfully, enterprise programs need both technology and trust. At Berkeley, every prepaid product is built atop bank-controlled funds, PCI and SOC 2 certification, and robust AML/KYC/KYB layers.
Our ledger system provides immutable, auditable records, giving both clients and regulators the confidence that every dollar is tracked from funding to redemption.
This compliance-by-design approach is what made it possible for government agencies and relief organizations like the Canadian Red Cross to deliver thousands of disaster-relief cards in record time.
During crises like wildfires, floods, or other emergencies, speed and accountability must coexist. Berkeley’s platform enables field teams to issue and load funds instantly while maintaining full transparency across every program and region.
Infrastructure Built for Reliability and Volume
Behind every billion dollars in loads is a precision-built foundation. Berkeley’s platform is engineered for always-on performance, capable of supporting high-volume programs with thousands of concurrent transactions, multiple partners, and complex funding logic, all without compromising speed or control.
At the core is Berkeley’s business-logic engine, which applies real-time rules for spending, velocity, and just-in-time funding across millions of cards simultaneously. Every transaction is validated and governed automatically, ensuring compliance and consistency no matter how large the program grows.
Meanwhile, our real-time ledger synchronizes activity across banks, networks, and processors, maintaining accurate balances and reconciliation at every step. This tight operational discipline is what allows enterprises to scale confidently, knowing there’s an infrastrcture in place that accounts for every dollar instantly and securely.
Use Cases that Drive Adoption
Prepaid growth hasn’t come from a single sector. It’s come from everywhere that money needs to move quickly:
- Digital Banking: Partnerships like ours with EQ Bank demonstrate how prepaid accounts can deliver debit-like functionality without building core infrastructure.
- Relief and Public Funds: Programs such as the Red Cross use prepaid for secure, trackable emergency disbursements.
- Employee and Contractor Payouts: Enterprises paying large distributed workforces rely on reloadable prepaid cards for real-time earned-wage access.
- Tax and Benefits Distribution: A leading national tax-preparation provider uses Berkeley’s rails to issue refund cards, eliminating costly check processing.
- Retail and Loyalty Programs: Major shopping-center networks use prepaid for branded incentives, allowing instant fund distribution to customers and tenants.
Each of these programs operates on the same principle of faster, more controlled, more transparent fund movement. This capability is made possible by infrastructure designed to perform at scale.
Why Enterprises are Choosing Prepaid Over Traditional Rails
The ability to scale alone doesn’t explain prepaid’s rise. The real story lies in why enterprises are increasingly choosing prepaid over traditional payment rails. In an economy where money can’t afford to wait, enterprises need to provide control, compliance, and cost efficiency quickly.
Speed to Market
Traditional banking integrations can take two to three years to build. By contrast, prepaid programs built on Berkeley’s platform can launch in months.
APIs and standardized onboarding processes remove the friction that slows innovation, giving enterprises the ability to test and scale new payment models faster than ever.
Control and Compliance in One System
Enterprises can configure their own guardrails - from merchant-category restrictions to spending limits and geographic controls - without rebuilding their architecture.
That flexibility is key for industries like insurance, lending, and relief, where different prograsm need to meet various regulatory and ethical standards.
Cost Efficiency and Customer Experience
Prepaid rails reduce operational costs while improving the end-user experience. Funds arrive instantly, customers can spend or transfer immediately, and every interaction happens within a fully branded environment, whether it’s a web portal, app, or card.
For many companies, this white-label capability is what transforms prepaid from a back-office function into a customer-facing advantage.
The Next Frontier for Prepaid
After over two decades in this industry, I can say with certainty that we’re only scratching the surface of what prepaid can do. We’ve seen it evolve from a faster way to move funds into a flexible, programmable foundation for how money flows. The next phase is about scale, inclusion, and connectivity across entire financial ecosystems.
Here’s how we can expect to see it play out:
Mainstream Banking and Fintech
Banks and fintechs increasingly view prepaid as the fastest path to market for deposit, savings, and spend products.
Instead of building from the ground up, they can deploy fully compliant, branded solutions on a single platform.
Programs like EQ Bank’s show that consumers are ready to use prepaid as their primary spending tool, not just an alternative.
Public Sector and Relief Modernization
Governments and NGOs are turning to prepaid for transparent, immediate aid distribution.
As crises unfortuantely become more frequent, the ability to issue funds securely with auditable data and spending control is essential.
Prepaid eliminates check delays and manual reconciliation, empowering organizations to reach recipients in hours instead of weeks.
Embedded Finance and Real-Time Money Movement
The next wave of prepaid will blur the lines between “cards” and “accounts.” Wiht tools like Direct Send and DDA-linked accounts, prepaid capabilities are extended to real-time transfers and digital wallets.
That means funds can move instantly - from employer to worker, business to vendor, or organization to beneficiary - without ever touching legacy systems.
Scaling Responsibly
As volumes grow, so do expectations. The focus will be on secure, compliant scaling and the addition of new rails and capabilities while maintaining integrity and trust.
What $1B in Loads Really Means
The billion-dollar threshold is more than a number. It represents the shift in how organizations move money - from legacy processes to real-time, configurable systems that empower both the sender and the recipient,
As we enter the next chapter of Prepaid 3.0, the challenge isn’t proving that prepaid can handle enterprise scale. Rather, it’s leveraging that foundation to innovate and provide new products and better customer experience.
At Berkeley, our mission remains clear: to give every organization - whether a bank, a fintech startup, or a national relief agency - the power to spend, spend, and receive money instantly, securely, and at scale.
If you’re building the next generation of payment experiences, we’d love to talk.
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Stay tuned for future installments of this Prepaid 3.0 series in which we’ll explore:
- Banking for Non-Bank Institutions
- The Compliance Layer
