NEW ORLEANS — Mobile devices and prepaid cards may just be a perfect match, especially if card issuers deploy mobile remote deposit capture as part of a payments solution.

“We think prepaid is a key link with mobile,” said Kate Marshall, innovation analyst at the Center for Financial Services Innovation, during a panel at this week’s Mobile Banking & Emerging Applications Summit.

One reason why mobile might be “key” to prepaid cards — which the panelists defined as general-purpose, reloadable cards — is because users who rely on prepaid products as pseudo checking accounts often use their mobile phones as the primary internet connection point. Because of that mobile dependency, Marshall, along with fellow panelists, highlighted mobile remote deposit capture as one feature that would particularly benefit the population. The perk for issuers, in turn, should be more customers.

“[Remote deposit capture] would be very useful,” said Patrice Peyret, chief executive of Plastyc Inc, which offers prepaid cards. “Jobs like to give [the population] paper checks.”

Yet, that's easier said than done.

The problem in launching the feature to prepaid card users is that not all the technology is quite up to par yet. Peyret said there’s an IT piece missing on the risk management side.

Kevin Morrison, senior vice president of prepaid at U.S. Bank, shared Peyret's view.

“The risk management piece isn’t there,” said Morrison. “It’s almost like an underwriting model.”

Though the panelists saw the need for mobile RDC to launch for the demographic, they did not see the underbanked gaining much from mobile NFC taking off.

“We don’t see a clear value proposition with NFC phones,” said Marshall. “NFC won’t have a particular promise, at least in the near term.”

Though Morrision agreed that NFC may not be “ideal” for underbanked consumers, he also highlighted an earlier assumption that proved false about the group. In short, he explained people used to assume the underbanked would not spend money on smartphones, though the reverse ending up proving true.

Part of the confusion may stem from uncertainty regarding which services to deliver to prepaid users — a segment that consists of a wide range of people, including the underbanked. Marshall, for one, pointed the general gap in data and research on prepaid card usage trends, which makes it hard to know exactly what the underbanked users need. That is, minus one thing.

"We know they are managing cashflow from day to day," she said.

Peyret, for another, revealed that Plastyc is about to launch something around savings. However, he identified two challenges that surround that deployment: lingering low interest rates compounded with the segment not having much money to put into savings.