Green Dot Wins Six Categories in 2015 Paybefore Awards

Green Dot Corporation (NYSE:GDOT) today announced it has been chosen as a 2015 Paybefore Awards winner in six categories, including “Change Agent of the Year” and “Consumer Champion,” for its prepaid debit card products, award-winning mobile bank account, GoBank, and Green Dot-managed, Walmart Visa Gift Cards. Awards include:

• “Change Agent of the Year” - Green Dot Corporation: A new category this year, this award recognizes the organization that pushed the boundaries of prepaid innovation by creating out-of-the-box solutions.
• “Consumer Connection” - Green Dot Prepaid Debit Card Tax Time 2014 Campaign: This award recognizes the most effective and exciting consumer marketing campaign to generate prepaid and/or emerging payments awareness, education or sales.
• “Top of Wallet” - Walmart MoneyCard®: This award recognizes the everyday prepaid spending card/program with the right mix of features, functionality and pricing.
• “Best Dressed” - Scented Walmart Visa Gift Cards: This award honors the most impactful design of a prepaid form factor, such as a card, fob or other means, and/or packaging to deliver a prepaid/emerging payments card/program.
• “The Gotta-Have Mobile App” - GoBank: This award honors the most exciting mobile app for enabling prepaid payments/transactions or providing financial-related information.
• “Consumer Champion” – GoBank: This category recognizes the card or program that delivers the best consumer value proposition for features, functionality, service and price.

“We continually strive to raise the bar in the banking and payments industries by providing consumers with simple, convenient and easy-to-use financial solutions that play an important role in their daily lives,” said Steve Streit, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Green Dot. “We are proud to have received these distinctions and are deeply appreciative of Paybefore’s support of our mission to reinvent personal banking for the masses.”

For nine years, the Paybefore Awards have conferred the most prestigious recognition of excellence in the worldwide prepaid, mobile and emerging payments industry. The awards are presented annually by Paybefore, the leading information provider to prepaid, mobile and emerging payments industry professionals. Green Dot and its products were selected by a panel of five industry experts who served as judges for this year’s competition, which—once again—included entries from around the world.

“This year’s Paybefore Awards have demonstrated once again that payments companies are committed to driving out the inefficiencies of cash and checks, while also increasing value for clients and end users,” said Loraine DeBonis, Paybefore editor-in-chief and chair of the judging panel. “We’re proud to recognize Green Dot’s contributions to advancing electronic payments.”

“Some may think there’s nothing new in the world of payments, but the outstanding winners in Paybefore Awards prove that’s not so,” added Marilyn Bochicchio, Paybefore’s CEO. “Emerging payments is packed with opportunity to make a difference for consumers, governments and businesses. And, the companies and programs we recognize through Paybefore Awards are outstanding examples of what can be done when creativity intersects with technology and a deep understanding of unmet needs. We tip our hats to the winners and all those who are making a difference.”

Green Dot, GoBank, Walmart Visa Gift Card and Walmart Money Card, will now vie for Best-in-Category distinction, which will be announced during the Paybefore Awards ceremony on Feb. 24 at the All Payments Expo. Visitors to Paybefore.com will have a chance to vote on Best-in-Category through Jan. 28. The outcome of this vote (counted as one-sixth of the total) will be combined with the five judges’ picks to determine Best-in-Category honorees.

About Green Dot Corporation

Green Dot Corporation, along with its wholly owned subsidiary, Green Dot Bank, is a pro-consumer financial technology innovator with a mission to reinvent personal banking for the masses. Green Dot invented the prepaid debit card industry and is the largest provider of reloadable prepaid debit cards and cash reload processing services in the United States. Green Dot is also a leader in mobile technology and mobile banking with its award-winning GoBank mobile checking account. Through its wholly owned subsidiary, TPG, Green Dot is additionally the largest processor of tax refund disbursements in the U.S. Green Dot's products and services are available to consumers through a large-scale "branchless bank" distribution network of more than 100,000 U.S. retail locations, thousands of neighborhood financial service center locations, online, in the leading app stores and through 25,000 tax preparation offices and leading online tax preparation providers. Green Dot Corporation is headquartered in Pasadena, Calif., with additional facilities throughout the United States and in Shanghai, China.

About Paybefore: Paybefore is the leading information provider to prepaid, mobile and emerging payments industry professionals, offering the latest news, commentary and analysis. Paybefore’s family of industry publications includes: Paybefore.com; Pay NewsTM; Pay GovTM; Pay WeekTM; Pay Op-EdTM; Pay MagazineTM, a biannual print publication featuring in-depth articles on the opportunities, challenges and trends in the global payments industry; and the only industry directory, Pay ConnectTM buyer’s guide, available online and in print. Visit us at www.paybefore.com.