Decide who your target market will be. There are many kinds of cards available: general spending, payroll, reward, gift, incentive, travel, teen and other mass payment cards. Specifically, decide whether you want to distribute cards to individuals who will use them for their own spending purposes or as gift cards, or do you want to service companies that need to make large cash distributions to groups of people but do not want to go through the expense and work involved in issuing separate checks.

Research providers of stored value card services such as Palm Desert National Bank and the Primo Card Group, which are two large providers. Contact your bank to see if it also offers stored value cards for resale or distribution to businesses that need to issue such cards. Make sure you fully understand the details of costs and services since those details will directly impact your profit.

Write a business plan detailing your target customer and how you will market the cards to that customer. Conservatively project your sales, cost of sales, net revenues, administrative expenses and other financial considerations over at least three years. Your profit margin will be small, so you must know how many cards you will need to sell each month to cover your marketing expense.

Make use of the assistance you can get from your service provider. It is in their best interest to make sure you have all the tools to succeed as a reseller or distributor of their product; and if you do not get adequate help from them, it is a sign that you might want to consider working with a different company.

Contact your attorney for information on federal, state and local laws that may impact your business as well as liability concerns. Escheat laws differ from state to state, and these cards are also vulnerable to changes in the Patriot Act, the Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering regulations.