Kansas City, Mo., City Council approves plan to expand city's Fountain Card program

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City, Missouri, City Council approved a plan Thursday to make the city's Fountain Card program a single-card system that can be used to pay bills, get benefits and access other city services.

The Fountain Card is a municipal identification card that creates access to municipal and regional services for residents.

The expanded card would work as a prepaid debit card — it would be available as a physical card and also could be loaded on a cellphone, according to a news release from the office of Mayor Quinton Lucas.

"The Fountain Card is already making life easier for tens of thousands of Kansas Citians," Mayor Lucas said in the news release. "Now with more tools, including helping our large unbanked population, one card will help Kansas City families access city services, pay their bills, hop on a KCATA bus, and expands our ability to reach all in our community without requiring folks go to multiple physical locations. For our many thousands of our neighbors who don't have a bank account, this program will open a door to the financial tools many take for granted.” 

The city will negotiate with the United Way of Greater Kansas City to run the Fountain Card program.

Services to be handled by United Way include picking the banks, technology companies and other service providers to handle the administrative jobs to make the program work.

The improved card will be a prepaid debit card that the city and others in the program can add funds to directly, per the news release.

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