The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday, July 20, edition that prepaid cards, like those offered at EQ Bank, are a small but fast-growing player in our retail payments system, competing with debit cards, credit cards, e-transfers and cash. The Globe's Rob Carrick writes that if you want access to the most innovative new banking products, you will need to get comfortable with prepaid. Use them for purchases outside Canada and you avoid the usual 2.5-per-cent foreign currency conversion fee that all but a few credit cards layer on top of the usual cost of converting foreign currency to Canadian dollars. The same applies to a pair of subscription-based accounts offered by the fintech company Koho. Prepaid cards can be a tiny step backward in convenience from debit and credit in that you may have to load money onto them on-line or using a mobile app. The benefit of this arrangement is a higher level of control over your money. You can overspend your way to credit card debt carrying an interest rate near 20 per cent, while debt cards allow you to drain down your chequing account to a point where you are in overdraft. Mr. Carrick says using prepaid is almost like putting yourself on an allowance.