AUSTIN, Texas -- 7-Eleven Inc. and NetSpend Holdings Inc. have entered into a distribution agreement through which NetSpend Visa prepaid cards will be sold at thousands of 7-Eleven stores across the United States. Both participating franchised and company-operated stores will offer the general-purpose reloadable (GPR) debit cards.

"We believe offering NetSpend prepaid cards is an ideal solution for our customers who want convenient financial services when they come to our stores," said Jesus Delgado-Jenkins, 7-Eleven's senior vice president for merchandising, marketing and logistics. "We are rolling out the NetSpend prepaid cards now and expect to be selling them in more than 5,000 stores this year."

NetSpend CEO Dan Henry added, "The combination of selling our GPR cards and expanding our reload network at 7-Eleven stores gives self-banked consumers an easier way to take care of their financial services needs outside of the traditional, normal banking hours and at locations that are more convenient to them."

NetSpend provides general-purpose reloadable prepaid debit cards and related financial services to an estimated 60 million underbanked customers in the nation, according to the announcement.