Personal finance icon Suze Orman, offers the latest entrant into the rapidly growing prepaid debit card market. She calls The Approved Prepaid Mastercard a game changer. Ms. Orman says it’s the first debit card that will share purchase information with Transunion, which is one of the nation’s three credit bureaus. She acknowledges this is a first step and may not lead to the creation of a credit score.
“It’s great she has convinced Transunion to evaluate this data,” says John Ulzheimer, President of Consumer Education at SmartCredit.com. He warns people may mistakenly believe their purchase activity will show up on their credit report and emphasizes the idea of reporting debit card transactions to create a consumer credit score is just at the research phase at this point.
Launching a prepaid debit card that bears her name has brought an onslaught of criticism for Ms. Orman. Critics say she is held to a higher standard than other celebrities who have endorsed or placed prepaid debit and credit cards on the market.
Ms. Orman recently sat down with theGrio to discuss why she launched The Approved card and responds to her critics.