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Operator
Good day, and welcome to the Green Dot Corporation Third Quarter 2011 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode.
(Operator Instructions)
After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions.
(Operator Instructions)
Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chris Mammone, Vice President of Investor Relations for Green Dot. Mr. Mammone, the floor is yours, sir.
Chris Mammone - VP - IR
Thank you and good afternoon. By now, everyone should have access to our third quarter 2011 press release. You can find it at www.greendot.com, under the investor relations section. Throughout this conference call, we will be presenting non-GAAP financial information, including non-GAAP total operating revenues, adjusted EBITDA, non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share.
This information is not calculated in accordance with GAAP and may be calculated differently than other companies' similarly titled non-GAAP information. Quantitative reconciliations of our non-GAAP financial information to their most directly comparable GAAP financial information appears in today's press release and in the appendix of the presentation that accompanies this call. Also, we're providing 2011 guidance on a non-GAAP basis with a reconciliation to GAAP which appears in the financial information section of our investors relations website.
Finally, before we begin our formal remarks, we need to remind never one that part of our discussion today will include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect and you should therefore not put undue reliance on them. Some of these risks are mentioned in today's Form 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Others are discussed in our 2010 annual report on Form 10-K, which is available at sec.gov. And with those formalities out of the way, I would like the turn the call over to Steve Streit, Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Green Dot Corporation. Steve?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Chris, thank you, and welcome to Green Dot. And welcome, everyone, to our Q3 earnings call. Also with me this afternoon is Green Dot's Chief Financial Officer, my good friend, John Keatley. Appreciate you all listening in so let's dive straight into an overview of our Q3 financial results.
We're pleased to report that in Q3, we achieved yet another very successful quarter, and here are some highlights for you. Non-GAAP total operating revenues increased 26% for the quarter, to $119 million. Adjusted EBITDA also grew 26% for the quarter, to $31 million. As a reminder, our financial results for the quarter are now reported on an apples-to-apples comparison to last year, because we have now fully lapped the Walmart renewal from back in May 2010.
Our adjusted EBITDA margins were flat year over year at 26%. We're pleased with this result, given that we continue to spend at historically high levels as we invest in people, new initiatives, and infrastructure. Furthermore, you may recall that the mid-point of our previously announced full-year 2011 margin guidance is approximately 24%. So as you can see, we're tracking well above that.
The number of new cards activated grew by 33% year over year to 2 million activations in the quarter. And new customers who reloaded their card for the first time also grew a robust 33% year over year to nearly 850,000 new reloading cardholders in the quarter. So we're not just attracting more customers, we're also attracting more of our most profitable customers.
By the way, nearly half of all activations in Q3 were customers who have purchased at least one other Green Dot card in the past. Our reported data makes it fairly easy to calculate churn and retention, if you will, on a plastic-by-plastic basis. But if you were to think about churn and retention on a customer basis, you can see that we retained many customers for many years, although that same customer may buy multiple cards over their lifetime with us.
The number of active cards as of the end of Q3 was up 27% year over year to 4.2 million active cards. Gross dollar volume, once again, displayed very solid growth in the quarter, up 63% year over year to $4.1 billion loaded to our products in Q3.
The ramp-up in direct deposit activity on our cards continued in Q3, with dollars loaded via direct deposit up 126% year over year, representing 51% of GDV loaded to our cards in Q3. And finally, cash transfers to our Green Dot reload network increased by 29% year over year to 8.9 million cash transfers in the quarter.
So really want to thank and congratulate the entire Green Dot organization for delivering another outstanding quarter. John Keatley will provide some more detailed color on these results. I'm going to hand the call over to him in just a few minutes.
And now I'll provide you with some business updates. You may have read about our recent agreement with Blackhawk Network to sell Green Dot brand general purpose reloadable debit cards through their network of retail partners. This deal has the potential to increase our distribution by around 10,000 additional locations over time and greatly enhances our reach into the supermarket channel at chains like Safeway, Albertson's and others.
I'm also pleased to announce that Green Dot [Launch Store] is in the process of launching new product SKUs and new merchandising programs at Walmart and Walgreen's and with other retailers still to come. At Walmart, we have agreed to double the number of products we sell by adding to the current money card suite of offerings, including two new Mastercard branded products that are targeted to specific usage of segments of Walmart customers. We expect the expanded money card category of the new merchandising and placement initiatives at other major retailers to nicely contribute to the new card activations number.
It's still very early on in the development of our online customer acquisition channel, but are pleased to report that new cards activated and funded through greendot.com and walmartmoneycard.com now ranks as our fourth largest distributor of our cards. Online is turning into a great distribution channel for us, because customers acquired through the online properties tend to give us higher revenue and retain their accounts longer than other customers, and also because our online properties nicely complement our retail network channel.
Next, I'd like to welcome First Data as a new reload customer on our Green Dot reload network. The First Data money network, which is the leading player in the employer pay card space, can now direct their customers to reload their payroll cards through the Green Dot network.
Moving on now to a brief regulatory update, as many of you know, the new interchange rules associated with the Durbin Amendment went into effect on October 1. Green Dot managed programs are exempt from restricted interchange, but there still seems to be some confusion in the marketplace about how our business may be impacted by the free ATM and bill pay requirements of the statute.
To review what we told you last quarter, one, we believe the financial impact of adding a monthly fee-free ATM withdrawal on the Walmart MoneyCard program next year will be either revenue neutral or slightly revenue positive over time.
As many of you know, we have had a fee-free ATM network on our Green Dot branded cards for some time now so we can predict with experience and confidence that the financial impact of adding a similar free ATM network on the Walmart program will cost us just slightly more than 1% of total company revenue, all else being equal, but should have a revenue in earnings upside of higher card usage and retention over time.
Number two, the only other notable change that we have made in response to Durbin was to proactively shut off our ACH bill pay service during Q3. Only around 1% to 2% of our customers have utilized this ACH service in the first place. Going forward, those customers will still be able to pay bills using their Green Dot cards where Visa and Mastercard are accepted. And since we'll now generate interchange revenue on those bill pay transactions, we could actually see a small financial benefit from this change.
Moving on to the Florida AG investigation, we continue to be responsive and collaborative with the AG's office and continue to work towards a resolution. There's nothing more to add at this point, but we'll have updates for you as developments warrant.
As to our pending application to become a bank holding company and to close on the purchase of Bonneville Bank Corp., we have not yet received a decision one way or the other from the Federal Reserve. We have guided that we would have a decision to report by now, but the process is taking longer than we had expected. And once we receive word from the Fed, we'll be sure to let you know.
Lastly, for more than a year since transitioning to a public company, we've been talking about the developing secular trends that have the potential to propel our company's adoption among both banked and unbanked consumers.
While it's always difficult to determine exactly what drove a particular sale to a particular customer, the continued and substantial growth in all our key top line metrics, including new cards activated, first time reloading customers, direct deposit volume and GDV loaded through our network all clearly seem to be indicating that Green Dot's value proposition is increasingly resonating in the marketplace. All good stuff. And with that, I'll now hand the call over to John Keatley with more color and background on our strong Q3 financial performance. And then after John's report, we'll go straight to Q&A. John?
John Keatley - CFO
Thanks, Steve. As Steve mentioned, we were pleased with our strong results in Q3. We continue to show very solid top line and bottom line growth, consistent with our expectations and the guidance that we have provided. I'd like to walk you through our financial results now in more detail, which are also presented in the supplemental materials available on our website.
As you turn to slide seven, you'll see the growth of the three components of our non-GAAP total operating revenues. The overall makeup of our revenues stayed relatively constant year over year with card revenues driving the largest portion of our revenues, followed by interchange and cash transfer revenues. Card revenues, which consist primarily of monthly maintenance fees, ATM fees and new card fees, grew 23% in Q3 to $50 million for the quarter.
This revenue category grew a bit more slowly than our active card base and the other components of revenue, due in part to the fact that more of our customers were taking advantage of the promotions and incentives that we offer our customers and account for as contra revenue.
For example, more customers qualified this year for monthly fee waivers and took advantage of our fee-free ATM network. Also, we've seen a significant increase in the number of customers earning the $10 incentive for enrolling in direct deposit or getting 2% cash back on gas purchases on their Walmart MoneyCards. Another contributing factor was the increase in new card activations from our online channel, where we do not charge a new card fee.
So while these incentives do tend to reduce the growth in card revenues in the short-term, we're happy with the higher usage and retention that they drive, and we're pleased to see that our customers are engaged in finding ways to use the product cost effectively.
Cash transfer revenues continued its consistent and steady upward trajectory, growing 31% in Q3 to $34.7 million. Heavy reload activity from our cardholders and from our network reload partners were the key drivers to that growth.
Interchange revenues grew 27% year over year, to $34.2 million in Q3, which was in line with the growth in active cards. As we mentioned before, interchange revenues do not grow in lockstep with the growth in gross dollar volume because as direct deposit activity increases, a larger portion of GDV is pulled off of cards at ATM machines or disbursed at retail stores when customers get cash back on purchases.
This dynamic was magnified in Q3 due to a large number of our cardholders receiving tax refunds on their cards. We saw relatively heavy tax refund activity in Q3 as cardholders took advantage of the late filing window for the 2010 tax year.
Moving on to slide eight, we see the components of operating expenses as a percentage of non-GAAP total operating revenues. We saw some efficiencies in several expense areas, despite the heavy investments we've made in our business over the past year.
Sales and marketing expenses increased approximately two percentage points year over year, from 32.2% to 34.3% of revenue but were in line with the level of expenditure for this category in recent quarters. The comparison period from last year, Q3 2010, was an unusually light quarter for sales and marketing expenses, as we had very little advertising and no significant in-store promotions or product rollouts.
The levels of sales and marketing expenditures in Q3 this year was consistent or slightly lower than what we've spent in the previous three quarters as 1% of revenue. Compensation and benefits expenses declined 40 basis points to come in at 18.3% of revenue, despite significant staffing increases across the organization, particularly in I.T. and risk management.
We saw the greatest amount of leverage in the processing expense line item, which declined by 70 basis points from 15.5% of revenue last year to 14.8% of revenue this year as we continue to negotiate for better rates and achieve volume discounts with our bank partners, our processors and the payment networks.
Other G&A expenses remained constant as 1% of revenue during Q3 at 11.7%. Scale efficiencies in this area were offset by higher depreciation costs associated with infrastructure investments and high professional service expenses tied to our bank application.
As we turn to slide nine, you can see our non-GAAP revenue growth. Our non-GAAP total operating revenues grew to $118.9 million in Q3, an increase of 26% over the prior year. These results are consistent with our earlier guidance that non-GAAP revenues would be roughly flat sequentially with Q2. Revenue concentration from Walmart declined slightly in Q3, from 65% of non-GAAP revenues a year ago to 62% this year.
Slide ten shows our adjusted EBITDA, which grew 26% year over year to $30.9 million, and our adjusted EBITDA margin, which was 26% for the quarter, roughly flat with Q3 last year. Slide 11 shows that our non-GAAP net income was $17.2 million for the quarter, and our non-GAAP EPS was $0.39. Both of these metrics increased by over 30% year over year.
Our balance sheet continues to be a source of strength for the business. We ended the quarter with $238 million of total cash and investment securities, including $10 million of restricted cash and $198 million of unrestricted cash and cash equivalent. Our total cash and liquid investments increased by $15 million during the quarter, and we remain debt-free.
For the full year, our guidance remains unchanged, but we can provide some additional color at this time. We project non-GAAP total operating revenues to be closer to the low end of our range of $490 million to $505 million. Meanwhile, our adjusted EBITDA should be closer to the high end of our range of $117 million to $123 million.
Our guidance implies that we expect to see a sequential bump in revenues during Q4, which we think will be driven by the seasonal trends we typically see during that quarter, combined with the impact we expect to see from some of our marketing and in-store initiatives, as well as some lift from new prepaid interchange rates introduced by Visa earlier this month. And with that, I'd like to turn the call back to Steve.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Thank you, John. Very good. We'll now open the phones for Q&A. Operator, we're ready for you.
Operator
Thank you, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session.
(Operator instructions)
Jason Kupferberg of Jeffries.
Ramsey El-Assal - Analyst
Hi, this is Ramsey El-Assal out for Jason. How are you tonight?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Hi, Ramsey.
John Keatley - CFO
Hi, Ramsey.
Ramsey El-Assal - Analyst
I have a question on the Blackhawk deal. To what degree does the involvement of the aggregator there weigh on margins when you compare it to one of your more kind of typical direct distribution deals? And as a follow-up, could you comment a little on the timing of the rollout, when are the first 5,000 locations coming on, and what might be the pace of the remainder? I know it's over a 24-month period, but I'm just trying to figure out how to incorporate in the model.
John Keatley - CFO
Sure. This is John. I apologize, I have a little bit of a cold this afternoon. Yeah, we've always had reseller type relationships as well as direct retailer distribution relationships. The economics do not differ significantly when we're working through a reseller to a particular retailer, as opposed to working directly with the retailer. There's no material change there. In terms of the rollout --
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Right.
John Keatley - CFO
Maybe I'll hand that one off.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
The latest information, you know, rollouts are always a little bit tricky because you're building displays, and there's a lot of logistics involved. The latest information I have is that we can expect to have that rollout well under way beginning Q1. There could be some in Q4, but not material enough to scream about. So I would look to model for a Q1 beginning.
Ramsey El-Assal - Analyst
All right, thanks. That helps. Also, could you give an update on the government channel, how your efforts there are going, if you're looking -- are there any kind of deals, sizable deals in the pipeline and also just an update on the IRS pilot and where that's at.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Yeah. Well, first, let me answer the IRS one first, because it's easiest. There is obviously not any IRS pilot that will be happening this year. It's already heading into November, and there's never been a new RFP or a movement on that. And as you mentioned in a previous call, in the political environment in D.C. and for a lot of other reasons, that's not rolling past to another pilot.
It could be that the program comes back in a different form or a similar form down the road. And if it does, we'll obviously do our best to find a way to be a part of it, but there is no IRS program like the one we piloted last year. So that's that.
On the government channel, I've actually been very pleased and encouraged. We have a wonderful fellow named Mark Shifke we brought on board, oh, maybe six months ago at this point to sort of start this channel from scratch and to find out what the needs are for state governments, primarily, and also some federal work and how we might be able to solve some of the challenges they're having. We've had a lot of fruitful meetings with a lot of states, a lot of state controller organizations and have learned a lot and shared a lot. And the activity in that channel seems pretty hot in terms of the number of meeting requests and that kind of thing.
What you never know in sales, to be honest, is meetings are meetings. Sales are sales. And rolling out and issuing products are the final stage of that. So it's hard for me to say with any certainty how many of these meetings will turn into sales. But for this stage of the channel, we're very encouraged by the high level of interest.
Ramsey El-Assal - Analyst
Great. I appreciate your comments. Thanks a lot.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Sure, Ramsey, thank you.
Operator
Glenn Fodor of Morgan Stanley.
Glenn Fodor - Analyst
Everybody, thanks for taking my question. With the prospects of banks raising the checking account fees, are you doing any sort of targeted marketing to convert some of those customers and grab some market share and flip them over to prepaid customers?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
The answer is we've always highlighted our value and the convenience and the ease of the products in the TV spots that we've been running long before this latest wave of bank criticism was popular. The commercials started with a husband and wife and their alleged children sitting at a dining room table, and they start off by saying, we used to have a checking account, but the fees became too high.
So we've always sort of been on that train, right, in terms of our messaging. So the question is are we doing anything new or different to further highlight it. And the answer is you can expect there will be some tweaking of our messaging in the media, and that type of thing. But essentially, we believe our messaging has always been there, and we're beginning to benefit increasingly from that kind of thing. But I wouldn't expect to see, if you will, a wholesale message shift or anything like that.
Glenn Fodor - Analyst
Good to hear on the kind of new products you're rolling out with some of your retailers. But is there any implications on those rollouts, on the marketing spend?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Implications meaning will we be spending more? Is that what you mean?
Glenn Fodor - Analyst
Exactly.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
I'll let John answer that.
John Keatley - CFO
Yeah, I mean, as we mentioned the last time, we do have some significant rollouts and promotional activities here and towards the end of the year. We've discussed before that we have some new SKUs rolling out in Walmart stores, including Mastercard branded product. And we'll have some significant promotional activities in many of our other retailers as well.
So, you know, you would expect a modest increase in sales and marketing activities as we head into Q4.
Glenn Fodor - Analyst
And along the lines of the same kind of seasonality patterns we've seen in the past, I guess?
John Keatley - CFO
Yeah, that's right, you know, with the exception that we're expecting more of a bump this year in Q4 than we've seen in the past. I think our guidance is consistent with that. You know, last year, among other things, we did have some disruptions in the retail environment due to [card act]. They were changing the locations of our products in many stores. A lot of those issues have been sorted out so we're expecting a bigger Q4 bump this year than we've seen in the past.
Glenn Fodor - Analyst
Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Operator
Brian Keane of Deutsche Bank.
Brian Keane - Analyst
Hi, guys. Just wanted to get clarity on the revenue guidance of $490 million to $505 million. I think you guys said it would probably come towards the lower end of the range. I'm just curious on, you know, what anything causing that. Was it the incentives that kind of dropped it towards the lower end, and what prevented it from being in the mid to high end?
John Keatley - CFO
Yeah, sure. So just as a refresher, we did have -- our initial guidance was $480 million to $500 million for the full year. And at the end of Q1, we'd had a very strong tax season and raised the guidance to $490 million to $505 million. You know, one issue that we had this year is that we had a larger share of our volume from customers getting tax refunds. A lot of those customers did run off in the [try] at the tax season or after getting access to their tax refund, and that was something that was a bit new this year.
You know, we also had -- we mentioned in the prepared remarks that we had some of the promotions that we ran that we book as contra revenue, like the direct deposit incentive of $10. The 2% off on gas rebates on the Walmart MoneyCard also booked as contra revenue.
These promotions very popular. And while they were good drivers of adoption and retention, they did put a drag on revenues in the short-term. So those are some of the factors that are causing us to head towards the lower end of that range here.
Brian Keane - Analyst
Okay. And then on the flip side of that, it sounds like the adjusted EBITDA is going to be towards the higher end. Is there something in it that's becoming more profitable or more scale in the business that's driving that?
John Keatley - CFO
Yeah, that's right. We are seeing some good efficiencies. You know, we mentioned some of the efficiencies we're seeing in processing. With our higher volumes, we're able to get better volume discounts. We're able to get some efficiency on comp and benefits. Despite the fact that we're making significant hires and really investing across the business, we're seeing some efficiency in comp and benefits. So those factors are helping drive some efficiency in the business.
Brian Keane - Analyst
Okay. Just last question for me, is there a way to quantify the benefit that you guys will get from the increased interchange that we're seeing from Visa and on to the prepaid cards, what that means for you guys?
John Keatley - CFO
Yeah, so the changes you're referring to are the -- for everyone out there, the new interchange rates that Visa announced and that became effective earlier this month, at this point, we have less than one month of data with the new interchange rates in effect, and it's a little bit too early to comment on specifically what the impact of those new interchange rates will be.
As you all know, there are a lot of moving parts with interchange and different merchant categories and basket sizes and so on. We feel like we need at least one month of data, maybe two months of data to really get a good handle on what the impact of these new interchange rates will be for us.
Brian Keane - Analyst
Okay. But it's definitely, it's just a question of how positive it might be? I mean, there's no -- you haven't seen any reason why it would be a drag for your guys' results?
John Keatley - CFO
Right. We believe it will be a positive.
Brian Keane - Analyst
Okay. Great. Thanks for the color.
John Keatley - CFO
You bet. Thank you.
Operator
Julio Quinteros of Goldman Sachs.
Roman Leal - Analyst
Good afternoon. It's actually Roman Leal in for Julio.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Hey, Roman, how are you?
Roman Leal - Analyst
Good, how are you? First to start off with, you know, obviously a lot of movement going on on the retail distribution space, and I was wondering if you can give us any color on your positioning there in that channel. Obviously, it's a leading one, but maybe if you can give us color on how many retailers are under exclusive contracts or stores or percentage of volume or anything that would be helpful there.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Well, I guess on a percentage of volume, a little bit easy to figure out, because everyone knows Walmart's exclusive, and that's 60 some odd percent. So the answer is most of our volume is exclusive, I guess by definition there.
We've never really gotten into specifics as to which retailers are exclusive and which ones are not, and we're probably best advised not to do that. I think what's probably most important to note is not all our retailers are exclusive nor have they ever all been exclusive.
And yet, even in the ones where we're not contractually exclusive, it's common and typical that they would still sell only our products anyhow. And so we like to think we earn exclusivity the old-fashioned way, and that is we earn it, to use an old-fashioned TV commercial.
And that is that we have great selling products and outstanding compliance and IT integration with retailers' POS systems and all those things which tend to give us practical exclusivity, even though we're not contractually exclusive.
In the case specifically to where you're talking about in 7-Eleven, I think, is what brings up the question, they announced recently that they're selling some other products, and 7-Eleven has always had other products on the shelf alongside Green Dot since day one, whether it's been the First Data product or an American Express product some years before that, their own product at one point. So we've never been exclusive in 7-Eleven, still will continue not to be. And so I did want to bring that up, if that's one of the reasons you're asking.
So we feel good about our position in retail and the sales in retail, the increasing sales in retail, the massive numbers of reloads that we do in retail locations. All of these things really build, we believe a significant value proposition to our retailer base.
Roman Leal - Analyst
That's helpful. With regards to the new products you're introducing in Walmart, any differences in pricing there? I mean, should we be thinking about an average revenue per card moving substantially there?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
They're all the same pricing model. It may be that we learn over time that usage differs between one segment or one usage segment and another product, and that could have impact into lifetime revenue earnings per card. But the consumer pricing is the same.
Roman Leal - Analyst
Okay. And then one last one on the 2% cash back promotion. Is that an ongoing program? You know, does it have -- does it expire at some point? Just curious to know the details there, and have you seen a noticeable trend in the uses of that promotion?
John Keatley - CFO
Yeah, it's been a very successful promotion. It's not a permanent feature of the card. It is scheduled to end, I believe it's at the end of -- you know, I'm not sure on the exact date, but it's not a permanent feature of the card. When customers buy gas, they get 2% off, effectively when they buy gas. We've found that it's a sticky feature. Customers like it. And when they use the card to buy gas, they tend to keep the card longer.
Roman Leal - Analyst
Thanks.
Operator Andrew Jeffrey of SunTrust.
Andrew Jeffrey - Analyst
Hi, guys, thanks for taking the question.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
You bet.
Andrew Jeffrey - Analyst
Can you just talk a little bit about your deal pipeline? You've had some nice wins this year, you know, sort of, I think, Steve, you referred to them from time to time as product line extensions and that obviously is a new distribution. But you have a new government division now and so forth. So I wonder if you could just sort of characterize the pipeline and talk about whether maybe sales cycles have changed at all now that we're post-Durbin and Fed interpretation thereof and that sort of stuff.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Yeah, sure. Well, we announced in this year in previous quarters the Blackhawk arrangement. We talked about AARP, which is our relationship with the AARP Foundation to market cards with the AARP logo and market those in retail stores and also in other venues to seniors who are being faced with the need to direct deposit their Social Security benefits, which as you know is a new law. So that's a new channel for us, a new customer base, a new partnership.
And of course, as you pointed out, we've talked about the government channel and the growth of our online channel. So all of this is relatively new in the past months and the past year. We have -- trying to think what I'm allowed to say. We have one of the best deal pipelines, I think, if we look out over the next six months to a year that we've had in a while and I'm very excited about all the deals that are in that pipeline.
The problem is until a contract's signed, we can't or shouldn't talk about it. We never like to pre-hype anything and so we don't talk about it until the deal is signed and so we've been somewhat mute on those points. But I'm very pleased with the great job our revenue team is doing on the pipeline coming up. And as we can make announcements, we will.
Andrew Jeffrey - Analyst
Okay, thank you. Oh, and I guess the one other question I had for you is as we look out, and I know you haven't given '12 guidance. I think Brian was asking about the contribution from higher interchange. Just directionally, would you think about higher interchange as being sort of sufficient to offset the lapse in the Intuit relationship, or what's the sort of qualitative order of magnitude?
John Keatley - CFO
You know, Andrew, it's a good question, something we're looking at very closely. And as I mentioned, we have limited data right now. We don't have a full month yet. So we don't want to really quantify the interchange up side just yet. I wish I could, but I think that will be something for the next call.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
I think the answer to the broader question, as we look at the pipeline, as we look at the sales trends, we feel we have enough momentum to overcome the Intuit loss. The answer is yes, if that's where you're going with the question.
Andrew Jeffrey - Analyst
Yeah, that was the intent of the question. Great, thank you.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
John's right. We don't want to pin our hopes on the interchange, because we need to see how that shakes out, but we feel good about our ability to grow past the loss of Intuit.
Andrew Jeffrey - Analyst
Okay. Great. Thanks.
Operator
Bob Napoli of William Blair.
Robert Napoli - Analyst
Thank you and good afternoon. Question on direct deposit. I'd like -- can you give a little clearer example of how you're marketing and what's driving the dramatic growth in direct deposit? I mean, are they coming from a certain channel? Is there, like is the Walmart channel a higher percentage of direct deposit? What is driving that growth, and where do you see it moving as a percentage of your GDV? It's a little over 50% now. Is it going to become 70%?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Let me ask John. I'll have John answer the second part, which is more numbers-based. I can tell you that the first part of why we've been so successful in growing direct deposit is I think we have a focus on it, and we're trying to get all the low hanging fruit into that enrollment.
And there's three things propelling it. One is just the growing mainstream nature of our products and the customers who use the products. So these are people who are accustomed to direct deposit. They may have had a checking account where they've had it before. They know what it means. They know how to sign up. And so I think, if you will, the mainstreaming of the Green Dot customer base is probably the largest reason for the increase in direct deposit, in my view.
The next part is we make it easier to enroll. It used to be sort of a puzzle, if you will, a Rubik's Cube of how to enroll and print the form and fill this space in, bring it to this lady who does this and that. We've tried to cut a lot of that out. With federal benefits, you can enroll with a click of a button and we take care of it for you. And then for employer-directed direct deposit, you can print out a pre-populated form online or get it in other ways where it's already filled out for you with directions, and we have a direct deposit hotline that customers and employers can call. So the second part would be making it easier to enroll.
The third part has been we incentivize it by paying that $10. And while $10 isn't going to make or break anyone's year, it's another reason for the customer to pay attention to it and to read the advertisement for it and to think about it or learn about it.
I think all those things have come together to make a more fertile enrollment environment for direct deposit. And as to where we think that ultimately can end up and some of the other questions you had, I'll give that one to John.
John Keatley - CFO
Yeah, Bob, I think, you know, the only thing I would add to that are the tax refunds that really this year were really a material portion of our total direct deposit volume, more so than last year. And that was especially pronounced during tax season, leading up to April 15th, but we've also seen it with late filers and people filing right up to the October late filing deadline.
We don't have a specific target on direct deposit as a share of total volume. Our cash volume has been growing very nicely. It continues to grow pretty steadily, up 30% year over year, and we think the cash portion of our business is going to continue to grow quickly and be a big piece of the overall story. But we do think direct deposit will continue to outpace it so it will continue to move up above 50%.
We don't have a particular target. It will probably always be lower than some other prepaid portfolios out there, given our acquisition channel and the types of customers we acquire in retail. Some of them, direct deposit is just not an option, and some of them are buying the card because of the cash load capability at the retail store. But we think it still has a good ways to go.
Robert Napoli - Analyst
How much of the direct deposit is payroll direct deposit, versus tax?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Depends on the season, I guess.
John Keatley - CFO
Yeah, depends on the season. You know, we haven't broken that one out specifically. There's, you know, as Steve mentioned, you've got three main categories. We've got payroll, we have government benefits, and we have tax. Tax, you know, this year was really a meaningful piece of it. You know, we haven't broken that out specifically, but it was quite a big piece of it.
Robert Napoli - Analyst
And then just on the Intuit, just, I mean, when we look at metrics for next year into the first quarter, the cards added and, I mean, that movement, I understand it's about 4% of revenue, of which you'll lose about 70% of it and keep the other 30% through the reload network.
But when we're looking at new card additions in the first quarter and second quarter of next year, how big of an effect is this going to have? Like should we be looking at new card activations, you know, being down year over year for the first quarter and second quarter and then, you know, once you move past Intuit? I mean, just to give a feel so there are no shocks on some of the metrics.
John Keatley - CFO
No. I mean, it is a material contributor on a lot of key metrics, probably GDV more than any other. So that does make a tough comp for Q1 on some of those metrics, but we certainly wouldn't expect a key metric by new card acquisitions to be down year over year because of the loss of TurboTax.
Robert Napoli - Analyst
Thank you very much.
Operator
Greg Smith of Sterne Agee.
Greg Smith - Analyst
Hi, guys. First off, the balance sheet, the cash is building quite a bit. Any thoughts on how you may deploy that anytime soon?
John Keatley - CFO
For the time being, you know, the focus continues to be acquisitions. So we continue to build a war chest, and our first priority will be acquisitions for a while.
A distant second priority would be to start to return that to the shareholders. But for the time being, and given the growth stage of this industry and our company, we intend to continue to hold on to it and use it for acquisitions.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
It feels comforting. We get that question a lot, as you can imagine. And the cash keeps building. We added another $15 million, I guess, this past quarter. We're up to, what is it, [240, 238], something like that. And we're debt-free. But I like that. It feels good in this environment.
We're in an environment that we think there will be a lot of what I'll call accidental consolidation in the prepaid industry, meaning that smaller players, we believe in our internal thinking, will have an increasingly more difficult time complying with a host of all the regulations and the new expenses involved and all the things that are going on.
And so we think there will be some good opportunities to come, and we think sometimes good things are worth being patient for. So we understand there's a lot of questions out there. Remember, I'm still the largest shareholder so I want to get my share as well, if you will. Private shareholder, anyhow. And so we always look at those things. But we like having the cash right now, and like the optionality it gives us, and so I wouldn't say we're in any rush to spend a lot of it just to do it.
Greg Smith - Analyst
Okay. And then this was talked about a little bit, but it does seem like we're going to increasingly see your card sold side by side with others. Is that going to change your strategy? Do you think -- do you anticipate, as that happens more frequently, doing anything differently with pricing or marketing? Just how are you thinking about the business as that maybe evolves in the industry?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Yeah, we think about it a lot. We don't know that we'll be sold in a lot of places side by side, but certainly more than we were, let's say, last year. Because last year, the answer was maybe only one retailer, and this year maybe it's going to be two. So there could be others.
Without going into specifics, we are a very competitive bunch. For those of us who know the management team, we've been at it for a while, and we have a lot of flexibility and optionality on what we can do with all kinds of things; pricing, advertising, marketing, packaging, the way we display our products, new products that we can roll out.
And whether or not we're sold side by side with a competitor, we always want to reinvent our company to be the best we can be and attract the most customers we can attract at a profitable level. And so you should always expect us to do things like that.
But, you know, maybe this is a good opportunity to comment on that, because lately we've been getting the competition question more. Look, this has always been a highly competitive market. I don't know how many prepaid companies were out there, but in our last survey, it was well over 900 or 1,000 of them that are out there marketing prepaid cards under one niche or vertical or other.
So a lot of products out there for the customers to choose from. If you were to go online, where we have a big presence, and type in prepaid cards, you may get 50 sites or something like that come up that has an offering like that, but we rapidly rose to the top or certainly one of the top of acquirers of cards online in the course of 12 months.
And so we've always had that kind of competition. I remember a year and a half ago, during our IPO road show, the big crisis at that time was that Western Union, a few months before our IPO -- this goes back now almost two years ago when they did this, came out with the low fee or fee-free card where there's no monthly fee. There are a lot of other fees, but no monthly fee. And everybody had opined at the time, oh, my gosh, this is it, and Western Union said we'll be in everybody's retailer. And, of course, that has never materialized.
It's now been six months since American Express announced their new product, which is a good product, and we're working with them on the reload side so we hope it's very successful. Since they announced that. And as you know, that was sort of the talk of the town with the investor community and the analyst community. But that's not materialized in any way that would be remotely competitive with Green Dot.
So we take all competition seriously. It makes us better. We're a very competitive bunch, but we don't see any new product or new distribution agreement on the horizon that would do anything to impede our growth. And if anything, it makes the category more urgent to consumers when we have more companies out there marketing and propelling the benefits of the product, and we think that's a good thing and that's the way products in large industries develop. So we don't feel any stress over that, but we respect the fact that it certainly could be a concern among investors and others.
Greg Smith - Analyst
Great. Thank you.
Operator
John Rowan of Sidoti & Company.
John Rowan - Analyst
Good evening.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Hi, John.
John Rowan - Analyst
You know, I probably ask this question all the time, but I was wondering, do you have any evidence or any type of data point that I can point to that shows me there's been a change or any type of increase in the consumer behavior to hold your cards for a longer period of time, whether it's card lifetime -- I know you guys talk a lot about direct deposit and, you know, kind of the thought process there is that more direct deposit increases card lifetimes and increases the stickiness. But I was just wondering if you had any real data point to point to to show that type of trend.
John Keatley - CFO
You know, there is limited data out there, I appreciate that, in terms of retention and churn. The short answer that is we have not seen any really significant or dramatic changes in terms of average cardholder retention or average card lifetime. You can probably back into that by looking at, you know, our rate of new card acquisition and the active cards from quarter to quarter.
You have -- as we mentioned before, we have very different segments of customers. We have people who acquire the card and keep it for a short period of time that tend to pull down the average retention quite a bit. At then the other end of the extreme, we have direct deposit customers who receive their whole paycheck on the card twice a month or every two weeks and keep the card for a period of years. So as the mix of customers changes, the retention changes a bit, but there has not been any real dramatic change in that metric.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
It's been tough to figure out. We actually looked -- you can see it by cohorts and segments, and we discuss those internally. But when you put them all together in one big pot and stir them up, it's hard to tell because year over year, the portfolio is used so differently.
So as we become more mainstream, people are looking at us as a way to get their taxes direct deposited. But a tax direct deposit is one of our shortest retaining customers, whereas a payroll deposit guy would be one of your longest retaining customers. So every time you try to come up with a simple way of looking at it, like all direct deposit is good and all cash reloading is bad, that's wrong, right, because we know that some of our cash reloaders who never use direct deposit are absolutely fabulous customers, some of our most profitable.
You could have a direct deposit customer who loads a thousand dollars and takes it off an ATM the next day, and he may be one of your least profitable customers. But it's very hard to sort of come up with a steady state to compare quarter over quarter, year over year, because the portfolio's so early in its development, and so many millions of new people adopt the products every year, and they have ways of using it that maybe we haven't fully thought of.
And so it's very much been a learning experience for us along with our investors and analysts, and I wish there was a more crisp way we could define it.
John Keatley - CFO
I guess the one clear trend that we can point out on this topic that Steve mentioned in the prepared remarks is the number of repeat customers that we're seeing. So even while the average retention of an individual card has not changed very significantly, we are seeing more customers come back and buy another card. And in that way, they are staying in the family and keep coming back to use Green Dot products, even if they might have several cards over their lifetime.
John Rowan - Analyst
Fair enough. I appreciate the color.
Operator
Tien-Tsin Huang of JPMorgan.
Tien-Tsin Huang - Analyst
I guess on the guidance, I just wanted to clarify, does the low end of the revenue range include any benefit from the higher interchange rates, or can we assume that it's up side?
John Keatley - CFO
We've been very cautious about including any upside from interchange in our guidance at this point. It's a lot of moving pieces, and we need a little more time to watch it.
Tien-Tsin Huang - Analyst
Understood. I just wanted to make sure that we should think of that as more up side than anyone else. Just mechanically, on the same topic, do you share some of that rate increase back in the form of commission or rebate to Walmart? Is that what's adding to some of the, you know, the uncertainty?
John Keatley - CFO
We do share with, you know, a handful of our distribution partners like Walmart, we do share some of the interchange revenue. But that's not really where the uncertainty lies. That piece is pretty well understood.
Tien-Tsin Huang - Analyst
Excellent. I just wanted to make sure for my own edification. Then just on the bank acquisition, Steve, just I guess I wanted to take your temperature and see if the delay, you know, signals anything at all. Do you feel better or worse about, you know, this closing?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Well, I feel -- I don't feel better or worse. I continue to feel cautious and optimistic. I guess that would be the two phrases. The delay is really, to be fair to the Federal Reserve in Washington who is working on our application, there's a tremendous amount of work that goes into running the Federal Reserve, you know.
You have five governors and their staff who are in charge of everything from Dodd-Frank to Durbin Interchange Amendment to -- oh, my gosh, probably card act. The amount of legislation thrown to the Fed to decipher under deadline has been massive. And I think it's fair to say that that has had an impact into the speed at which they're able to entertain things that are not as important as saving the world, and that would be our application.
So I think there's been some delay there, and they are very, very hard working and, from my experience, an extraordinarily talented and great group of people at the Federal Reserve. So I wouldn't say the delay in and of itself means anything good or bad. I don't think it increases our chance to be declined or approved.
But we continue to feel cautiously optimistic, and we've been guided that we'll have a decision sooner than later and so we remain patient. But I could always see the decision going either way and always have felt that way. So I don't know if that provides any better color for you.
Tien-Tsin Huang - Analyst
It does, and I appreciate that. Last one for me, I promise. Just you mentioned -- I think Andrew asked about the pipeline. Has the composition shifted at all? Are you seeing more opportunity to work with the banks on a private label basis?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
We're seeing the opportunity [set] broaden dramatically. If you think the Green Dot in the past as being retail, then retail and online, the answer is we're seeing new exciting channels, new partnerships and new ways to distribute cards both in retail and online that I don't think we would have been thoughtful of three years ago, let's say, or two years ago. So I think as these deals are announced, you'll kind of see a pattern emerge as we look to continue our acquisition of new customers.
Tien-Tsin Huang - Analyst
All right. Good stuff. Thanks so much.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
You bet, Tien-Tsin.
Operator
Gil Luria of Wedbush Securities.
Gil Luria - Analyst
First, a product introduction question. You've mentioned Mastercard. Mastercard's mentioned prepaid cards at Walmart. There are already Mastercard branded cards at Walmart. Are you talking more about branding, like, a NASCAR prepaid Visa, having a brand like that, an online card that's Mastercard? Is this something new? Has this already been introduced? Is this happening in the fourth quarter?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
No. It's the same product that I think everybody's rushing to talk about. So there's, oh, gosh, I want to say three SKUs, three Mastercard SKUs we've added at Walmart. If I'm off, I'm only off by one, Gil.
Gil Luria - Analyst
And they're already there?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
They're already there, yeah. We rolled those out, oh, gosh, maybe three months ago or two months ago. And they're already there, that's correct. So I think what [RJ] was referring to was a restatement of those new products. And, of course, when you launch a new product, it grows over time as customers see it and everything else. So that's what that is.
Gil Luria - Analyst
Got it. And then your guidance for the fourth quarter implies sequential revenue acceleration and pretty decent year over year margin expansion. In the terminology of your three revenue lines, where do you expect the uplift there in revenue? Because it's still sequential revenue up. Is it going to be the same pattern where it's more cash transfer, more interchange, less card revenue in terms of ramping from the third to the fourth quarter?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Gil, that's probably a finer level of detail than we want to get into at this point on the next quarter, but I wouldn't expect any dramatic change in the revenue mix here, heading into Q4.
Gil Luria - Analyst
Got it. Thank you.
Operator
Tom McCrohan of Janney.
Tom McCrohan - Analyst
Yes, thanks for taking the question. On the bill payers, the folks that do pay the bills with funds loaded on the card, who are the top three billers that are recipients of funds today?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
On the -- say it again, Tom. When people pay a bill with their Mastercard or Visa debit card, what are the top bills? Is that what you're saying?
Tom McCrohan - Analyst
Yeah, who are the top three recipients? Which billers are getting the majority of bill payments from Green Dot cardholders?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
That's a good question. I haven't checked timely enough to give you a certain answer on this call; but historically, it's been telecommunication providers, people paying their cell phone bills, occasionally utility bills, places where they accept Mastercard and Visa.
Tom McCrohan - Analyst
Okay.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
For example, your Verizon bill or your Sprint bill, that kind of thing.
Tom McCrohan - Analyst
Think of Metro PCS, something like prepaid?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Yeah, all those. Yes, any -- telecommunication providers and cell phone companies always gravitate towards the top. PayPal at one time was a good merchant for us and probably still is because people load with a debit card. Pay TV or cable TV, you know, DirecTV, things of that nature. Just what I'll call common utilities or telecommunications where they accept Mastercard or Visa has always, going back to the early days, been a popular use of bill pay on the card.
Tom McCrohan - Analyst
Okay. Had a question on the brand and then one clarification question. In the majority of the retail stores, the card is branded Green Dot with the exception of Walmart. Over time, do you expect to see more cards kind of co-branded with a channel partner, or do you expect, you know, to kind of push the Green Dot brand on your cards as you kind of explore new channels?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Well, there could be co-brands here or there depending on the size of the partner and the rationale for why you'd do it. In the old days, the reason you labeled a card with a co-brand was ego, frankly. You wanted -- everybody wanted to feel good so you'd have six different names on the plastic.
But I think as folks become more sophisticated about it, there's got to be a good consumer reason to co-brand it. There's clearly a great consumer reason in the case of Walmart because they're Walmart and because they have a financial services division and they believe it has some pull and we believe so too.
It wouldn't always make the case in every other channel. And even on the Walmart cards, as you know, Green Dot is very prominently displayed both on the package and on the card itself. So we're still on those cards, even though the co-brand is Walmart and Visa, or Walmart and Mastercard, depending on the flavor.
So Green Dot is the brand that we always push and that we promote. It makes it easier for national marketing. Consumers are highly aware of it. The name of the reload network is Green Dot. And Green Dot has a lot of sway and influence with this customer base. So I would expect that Green Dot would always be the dominant brand.
Tom McCrohan - Analyst
Okay. And this is my last question on EBITDA guidance. John, on page 19, there's some reconciliation schedule, you know, that goes through the moving parts for getting from GAAP EBITDA to adjusted EBITDA. And this quarter, the stock base retailer comp went down about $6 million from $24 million to $18 million. But the reconciliation table for EBITDA didn't change. It stayed at $76 million, same as last quarter, which I know is an amalgamation of a couple things, one of is which stock-based comp. So why didn't that go down by $6 million?
John Keatley - CFO
I think there's a lot of detail in the footnote as to the assumptions behind it. In general, though, I think as an overarching comment, we really just provide guidance on adjusted revenue and adjusted EBITDA. This page is really here for SEC requirements to show a reconciliation back to GAAP. So we're not indicating anything about stock-based comp or where we think our stock price is headed, which is another component in that. So I wouldn't read anything in here beyond assuring the mechanical calculations to get you from the adjusted revenue and adjusted EBITDA back to GAAP figures.
Tom McCrohan - Analyst
Fair to say it does imply that one of the other categories went up by $6 million, the stock-based comp or depreciation amortization?
John Keatley - CFO
Yeah. Again, I would just -- we're really just guiding on adjusted revenue and adjusted EBITDA here.
Tom McCrohan - Analyst
Okay. Just trying to get a feel for the moving parts. Thanks.
John Keatley - CFO
Sure.
Operator
Wayne Johnson of Raymond James.
Wayne Johnson - Analyst
Hi, yes, good afternoon. If we're talking about Green Dot in two years from now, what kind of percentage of sales or revenues do you think sales and marketing would be? You know, how should we think about that progression going forward? Do you expect to maintain kind of the current rate? And that's my first question.
John Keatley - CFO
Sure. So I guess, you know, as we're looking forward, as we've mentioned before, we expect to drive some margin expansion over time. You would expect that to come primarily from some of the other line items, comp and benefits, other G&A. We've seen some benefit in processing already, and there could be more. But probably not in sales and marketing. I mean, we expect that to generally grow in line with revenues.
For example, we spend a bit more online to acquire cards, but they tend to be very high quality customers and we expect to increase our spending on that channel as that channel grows over time. We wouldn't expect a lot of efficiency on the sales and marketing line.
Wayne Johnson - Analyst
Okay. I appreciate that. And this question was, I think, partially asked, but regarding the direct deposit opportunity for you guys and your relationship with ADP, could you expand a little bit on how the ADP relationship is progressing and, you know, how we should think about that going forward as a source of GDV growth?
John Keatley - CFO
Sure. The ADP relationship does not contribute to GDV at all. It's purely a reload deal so that when their customers reload on the Green Dot network, we generate some cash transfer revenue. But that GDV does not appear in our numbers at all.
Wayne Johnson - Analyst
Well, thank you for that clarification. But still going forward on ADP, is there a way that we should be thinking about that as far as you, know, percent penetration of their opportunity and customer base? I'm just trying to use some sort of metrics and roadmap of opportunity. That's all.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Well, if you think about ADP as a reload partner, which is what it is; in other words, the payroll cards that they'll issue to folks who adopt the product that they market to, they can now reload their cards on Green Dot reload network. And so how much revenue we gain from that or the size of the opportunity depends on a couple of variables, neither of which we control.
One is how many cards will ADP ultimately issue to consumers. And I know it's a relatively young program for them. And then number two, how many of those customers who get the cards are going to reload with cash at a Green Dot location, and that relies on how well it's marketed, the kinds of folks who are adopting the payroll card and a lot of variables like that.
So it's probably too soon into their program for us to get a sense as to whether or not this is going to be one of our bigger or midsize reload partner programs. We're not sure. But ADP has every opportunity, as you called the opportunity [set], they have every opportunity to be a great payroll card issuer. They certainly have the right customer base and the right people to market to.
So we hope it's a big portfolio and that many of those customers end up reloading on our network. Wayne, was that helpful? Uh-oh. Wayne?
Operator, we'll take our next question.
Operator
Yes, sir. The next question comes from James Friedman of Susquehanna.
James Friedman - Analyst
I apologize I don't know this, but has the prepaid industry had prior adjustment to interchange? And if so, what was your experience on the impact to revenues?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
No. I mean, there's always changes that come and go with what used to be called the associations and now the payment networks, Mastercard and Visa, and has been for 40 years. There's always some movement of the soil, if you will, of interchange.
But I think the reason, if you're relatively new to the story, is that the whole Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act included the Durbin Amendment, which wholesale recast interchange rates for institutions of different sizes or different kinds of debit card programs. So I think that's why you're hearing so much questioning about interchange.
John Keatley - CFO
Yeah, I think the last increase was, I want to say, April 2010. Could be wrong. But periodically, the interchange rates for debit have changed and, in general, they've pretty consistently gone up, and it's always been a positive benefit to us when that happens.
James Friedman - Analyst
Okay. Was the April 2010 the same magnitude as the -- I think it's the 5% that's currently contemplated?
John Keatley - CFO
Yeah, well, you know, we haven't quantified exactly what this change means for us yet so a little early to say whether it's bigger or smaller.
James Friedman - Analyst
Okay. Switching gears, it seems like, you know, you're now in an exciting position to start to aggregate more data about your end markets and your customers. What stage are you at in terms of maybe monetizing and mining some of that data?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Well, we do have a lot of data, and the answer is we're not in any way monetizing it today except to help educate ourselves into how to better service and market to our customers. So we don't have any other uses of it.
To your point, you know, we have so many millions and millions of customers doing so many hundreds and hundreds of millions of transactions, and that data is rich, and the environment to collect it is there. So to the extent we can use that in a way that's helpful to our customers or in a way that we could monetize, I guess we could.
The challenge is, though, frankly for us is we've got so many great opportunities ahead of us and low hanging fruit, and we don't see the reselling of data as low hanging fruit. That's high hanging fruit, if you will, number one.
Number two is we're deeply protective and highly conservative on the way we think about our cardholder data. And any kind of use of information that could even potentially concern our customers or raise concerns about the use of third party data would be deeply concerning to us, and that's another reason we just haven't gone there.
In fact, in our privacy policy, our GLB notices that get sent out, we don't share our data today with any third party provider at all. We don't even have the ability to share it. So we drafted the most conservative privacy policy you can have at a bank. And so the answer is it could be something we do with that data down the road, more likely to be internal than selling it externally.
James Friedman - Analyst
Okay. Thanks for the update.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
You bet.
Operator
Ashwin Shirvaikar of Citi.
Ashwin Shirvaikar - Analyst
Hey, guys. So I wanted to just get back to the bank acquisition question. Obviously, strategically very important for you guys, and so as it pushes out, what is the backup plan from a product release standpoint and so on?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Well, the word backup plan, how do I describe this? We think that becoming a bank holding company, which as you know is a very expensive, very long-term project that we've undertaken as a key initiative, if we got approved for that, we think it gives us some sustainability and some vertical integration and some nimbleness in the product development cycle that maybe we didn't have prior. And we've always said that was the three reasons for wanting to become a bank holding company.
But today, we operate not as a bank holding company. And if we were not approved, that would continue. In other words, we would try to look at other ways to give us -- to accomplish those three reasons for buying the bank.
We'd look at other ways to give ourselves better sustainability, meaning more risk mitigation of banks, partners. We would look for ways to structure contracts with regulators and banks to have a more nimble product development platform, and that's what we would do. You wouldn't be able to accomplish the vertical integration piece, necessarily. But having said that, that was the smallest part. We never forecast any meaningful dollars saved in that component of it.
So we would need to find other ways to get those benefits. But, you know, I want to remind you that we're not a bank holding company today. Nobody in the industry that is doing what we do, us (inaudible) or anyone else, is a bank holding company. And we will continue to do what we did, are doing today, but in a way that got us what we needed. But our clear preference would be to get approved for the charter.
Ashwin Shirvaikar - Analyst
Okay. And then the second question I wanted to go back to the [NNA] question that was asked earlier. And you did say that, you know, from a use of cash perspective, you know, investing in the business would be clearly the right thing to do, and I certainly agree.
But you had a point there about consolidation of maybe the lower end of the industry. And I just wanted to get a clarification from a use of cash perspective. Are there specific targets you are looking at? Is the pipeline opportunity there?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Well, there are specific types of targets we're looking at, although what I mean by that is we start off and we say, hey, let's sort of think about who's out there. What kind of companies do X that could help us achieve Y? And then we try to identify those companies. It isn't that we target any one particular more than we target a certain set of metrics that we're looking to achieve or a certain strategic advantage we're looking to gain through a purchase.
And the reason why I think timing is important and why the patient bird gets the worm -- I couldn't think of a better analogy. The reason we think it's smart to sit tight is that the market is changing more and more. You know, the competitive barriers have never been higher in entering our industry. You have to have scale to do it profitably. You have to have massive scale to be able to afford all the new requirements that are continually placed on companies like ours.
You have to have a brand name. You have to have technology that works and is auditable, and you have to have just a gargantuan compliance infrastructure to navigate through the laws and obligations that are imposed on companies like ours and other banks, to be fair, not just prepaid providers. Everything from AML standards and all the Vinson regulations to all the requirements of card act and Durbin and Reg E and everything else that you have to comply with.
So we see the barriers increasing and the cost of entering the market increasing. But you have a market where you have 900 to 1,000 repaid providers, of which maybe five of them have any kind of scale or size. So that tells me that something is going to happen over -- this is just me talking. I don't have any evidence to prove this. You're just asking my thought as a CEO.
As you look at the other 895 programs out there that -- or 995 programs that may not have the scale and the funding necessary to continue, my guess is many of those, most of those will ultimately go away through closing up shop or in some way selling off and/or combining. And then you'll have some of the top half of that that have enough size and scale where they can't make it on their own, necessarily, but that they could be good acquisition targets. And when that moment comes and you start to see that activity pick up, we just want to make sure that we're well equipped for it.
Ashwin Shirvaikar - Analyst
Okay. I agree on the competitive aspect, certainly. Thank you.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
My pleasure, Ashwin. Thank you.
Operator
That will conclude today's teleconference. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Steve Streit for any closing remarks. Mr. Streit?
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Yep. Thank you, Operator, and I think we're good to go. We've enjoyed your questions today. We have a fairly heavy conference schedule coming up that Chris Mammone and team have put together; New York, Boston, and I don't know where else, maybe San Francisco. Where else are we going between now and --
Chris Mammone - VP - IR
Well traveled throughout the country.
Steve Streit - President, CEO
Well, at least parts of the country. Two, three cities. To the extent you see us appearing, we'd love to see you, there and there should be plenty of opportunity to see you all face-to-face and answer more questions. We appreciate your interest. Have a wonderful day.
Operator
We thank you, gentlemen. You also have a wonderful day. That will conclude today's teleconference. We thank you all for attending today's presentation. At this time, you may disconnect your lines.