Why did UGA move to Prepaid Visa Cards?
- UGA pays human subject participants across the university for research needs. UGA must have a payment method that captures data needed for federal, state, and local compliance reporting. Prepaid Visa Cards were identified as the method to fill the gaps UGA identified during a recent review.
- The unique ability to use Prepaid Visa cards as both a physical card and an electronic form of incentive payment provides a solution to fulfill the payment needs of Human Subject participants and increase participation in programs.
- The Prepaid Visa Payments site provides robust reporting, the ability to have a central database, transparency of all funds, Internal Audit direct access to all transactions, and security of university funds. These system abilities benefit the Bursar’s Office by reducing petty cash bank accounts, per USG requests, reducing gift card inventory, and maintaining one card for all studies.
- The Prepaid Visa Payments site offers unique system features—such as advanced reporting—that enable departments to reconcile their studies directly with the GL while providing full transparency into funds and related transactions.
- UGA worked for over two (2) years with stakeholders across all units to evaluate and approve this new incentive payment method.
- Human subjects will be issued one card across all university projects, reducing the university costs of supplying multiple cards.
- Prepaid Visa Cards will help with employee safety since Prepaid Visa Cards are not active until a department adds participant information and funding.
- Prepaid Visa Cards also have the capability of being replaced if lost or stolen, resulting in real-time funds for participants.
- All funding and transactions are in real– time. Eliminating any wait time for participants to receive their funds or to see the balance on their cards.
- Prepaid Visa Cards participants also have three (3) diverse ways to view their card details, which provides participants with full transparency of their card information.
- A 1-800 number for participants to call.
- A participant website to view card and transaction details.
- A participant app to view cards and transaction details.
- Prepaid Visa Cards do not have a minimum or maximum funding requirement.
- The cards have multiple spending options:
- Using the card at different vendors in person or online.
- Transferring their funds to a bank account of their choice.
- Adding the card to the mobile wallet via their smartphone.