Affinity meets prepaid with Prepaidian, a new venture serving smaller affinity groups.

The company launched quietly last year under the leadership of prepaid industry veteran Jim Shanahan and inked its first deal, with Boys & Girls Clubs of Delaware, at the end of 2013. (The sign-up page for the card is here.) Prepaidian’s card is a general purpose reloadable Visa card. The company is headquartered in Wilmington, Del.

Affinity partnerships between credit card issuers and organizations commonly divide revenue that comes from interchange fees. The terms of Prepaidian’s recent partnership was not disclosed, but prepaid card revenue generally comes from fees. The entire deal was done on the hush hush, without a press release or publicity of any kind.

Affinity cards for all but the largest groups have been dropped by the big banks, Shanahan told Bank Innovation. JPMorgan Chase acquired a large portfolio of affinity cards with its First USA acquisition (via Bank One) in 2007, as did Bank of America with its purchase of MBNA in 2005. But both brands have since shed the bulk of those cards, purportedly because they were unprofitable. The largest banks tend to only work with major retailers, large companies, universities and professional sports teams, Shanahan said.

JPMorgan Chase also announced it was leaving the payroll and government benefits space late last week, citing difficulty managing the risk. A large data breach of the bank’s card portfolio over the summer and increased attention from the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau have also made that business less appealing.

All of this leaves the prepaid space open to smaller players willing to handle the risk, such as Prepaidian. Adoption of prepaid cards is skewed toward younger users, according to a November 2013 study from Aite Group. The same study reported that nearly 1 in 4 U.S. consumers carried a prepaid card in 2013.

That should be enough to make it worthwhile for Prepaidian.