A survey sponsored by Market Rates Insight, a financial services research firm, hasfound that middle and upper income consumers are open to usingprepaid cards if their financial institutions provided them.

Conventional wisdom has held that lower income consumers withoutdeposit accounts have been most open to the cards.

“Expect prepaid reloadable cards to become the norm in thefuture.” said Dan Geller, executive vice president at Market RatesInsight in San Anselmo, Calif., “the research clearly shows thatbaby boomers, who are the largest segment of the U.S. population,are likely to adopt prepaid cards as their main paymentmethod.”

The firm's research found that 47.1% of existing bank customersand credit union members are likely to use prepaidreloadable cards if offered by their financial institution.Consumers also indicated willingness to pay an average of $4.21 permonth for the use of the prepaid card.

The study also found that among consumers who are likely to useprepaid cards, 36.7% earn between $35,000 and $65,000 per year;22.1% earn between $66,000 and $100,000 a year; and 14.8% earn over$100,000 per year.

Another axiom that the survey challenged concerned the age ofprepaid card users. Conventional wisdom has held they aremost popular among the young, but the study found that 42.3% ofconsumers likely to use prepaid cards are baby boomers ranging inage between 47 and 66 years old.

The prepaid card findings came from a larger consumer researchstudy conducted during April 2012, and released this week, whichfound that 67.1% of consumers are likely to use services such ascredit score reporting services, identity theft alert services,mobile deposit services, person-to-person payment services,personalized couponing services, overdraft transfer services, andprepaid reloadable card services if offered by their financialinstitution.