Ever thought you could use your government-issued ID to buy a cup of coffee? It seems like those days may not be far off now that the City of Oakland has issued a city ID card that is also a prepaid MasterCard debit card. [An image of the ID/debit card is at left.]

The card came about because Oakland — as well as other cities that have yet to release the cards — wanted to issue IDs for nondrivers that used city services. The card allows the city to issue funds to the citizens cheaply and easily. There are no checks in the mail and no check-cashing fees to pay out.

Such cards have been issued for college IDs before, but not for municipal IDs, as far as Bank Innovation could discover.

Oakland approached sourcing experts at SF Global for ideas. SF Global sent them to prepaid card issuer Praxell, which in turn partnered with Arroweye Solutions, a maker of customized payment cards. Arroweye’s technology allows for secure and highly personalized cards to be produced affordably on demand.

“Certain companies specialize in creating ID cards,” said Arroweye CEO Render Dahiya. “These usually consist of preprinted shells and a photo or signature are added on site to produce a laminated card, as at the DMV.” But these types of cards cannot be used as payment vehicles.

The card is a simple magstripe swipe card, but more sophisticated options, such as EMV and NFC-enabled cards, may be on the horizon. Certainly Arroweye is ready to go with these types of cards, but they are considerably more expensive to produce, according to the company.

“As services get more automated and more driven by your identity, and more cities are offering services,” Dahiya said, “more of these cards will be needed.” The cards are expected to particularly benefit to financially underserved communities, members of which have difficulty accessing traditional banking products.

Oakland ordered its first cards in May 2013.

With federal and state governments increasingly mired in partisan battles that prevent innovation, it is falling to cities to provide novel services. The bipartisan Brookings Institution recently released a book called The Metropolitan Revolution that gets at this issue. As Jennifer Bradley, one of the book’s authors, said to an interviewer last night, sometimes innovation means “getting stuff done.”

Now where have we heard that before?