From ACH direct debit to Prepaid card?
This would be exactly the sort of product that a thief would want, if they had got ahold of some account numbers and wanted to steal the money from those accounts, in a way that would let them spend it as conveniently as possible. That should explain why I think it's unlikely that any such product exists.
Automated Clearing House transactions are used in the US for direct deposit of pay checks and direct debit of many payments for accounts such as mortgages, credit cards, car loans, insurance premiums, etc. The reason they take one or more business days to clear is that the transactions are accumulated by each processor in the network during the day and processed as a batch at the end of each business day.  The ACH network processes 20+ billion transactions per year worth $40 trillion, (estimates based on 2012 figures). Get a credit card is NOT the answer. The reason people have a bad (or no) credit score is often because they're new to the country, have just turned 18, have previously fallen into arrears or are just bad with money. Getting a credit card is risky because, if you don't stay on top of your payments, it'll just damage your score even more.  Now, it sounds like I hate credit cards - but I don't, and they do have their benefits. But avoid them if possible because they can be more hassle than they're worth (ie, paying the credit back on-time, cancelling accounts when the interest comes in, moving money in and out of accounts). It's risky borrowing money from anywhere whether it's a payday lender, a bank, a credit card, etc., so use them as a last resort. If you've got your own income then that's amazing!, try not to live outside of your means and your credit score will look after (and increase) itself. It takes time to build a good credit score, but always make sure you pay the people you owe on time and the full amount. I'd stick with paying your phone provider (and any other direct debits you have setup) and avoid getting a credit card. I'd recommend Noddle to keep track of your credit score and read their FAQ on how to help build it. Unlike Experian, it's free forever so not quite as detailed... but Noddle are owned by CallCredit - one of the biggest Credit Reference Agencies in the UK so they should have the latest information on yourself. In conclusion, if you already have financial commitments like a mobile phone bill, gym membership, store cards, anything that gets paid monthly by direct debit... your credit score will increase (provided you pay the full-amount on time).   I hope this helps. PS. I don't work for any of the companies here, but I've been working in the finance sector (more specifically, short-term loans) for 3+ years now. "I'm not sure I understand your question, but I'll try to answer what I think you're asking. I think you're asking this: ""A US bank receives a wire transfer from a Chinese bank. How does the   US bank ensure there's any money in fact arriving before crediting the   destination account?"" Well, the way wire transfers work is that the US bank would debit the senders' account with that US bank. So the US bank in fact transfers the money between two internal accounts: debit to the Chinese bank's account with that US bank and credit the destination customer account. If the Chinese bank doesn't have an account with the destination US bank - a third party intermediary is used that both banks have accounts with. Such third party will charge an additional fee (hence sometimes the wire transfer fees are slightly higher than you initially know when sending the money, the third party would debit from the transfer amount). ""Regular"" IBAN/ACH transfers work through regulatory channels that ensure integrity and essentially use a regulatory bank as that third party. But because they're done in batches and not on-line, they're much cheaper, and the accounting is for the whole batch and not each transfer separately. But batch processing means it will take a day or two of processing, while wire transfer takes hours at most." I think that a prepaid card would have more risk for loss than a traditional credit card.  I've had a various credit cards for about the last 20 years. In all that time, I haven't lost a penny due to fraud. Of course, I've had some fraudulent charges show up, I've had merchants charge too much, and I've had my card number stolen. In every case, my bank has been able to undo any damage and issue me a new card number, if necessary. I really don't spend any time worrying about credit card security, other than checking my statement each month. Security is the bank's problem, not mine.  Prepaid cards are often anonymous. If you are using an anonymous card, how can the bank verify that you are the owner of the card and that you did not make a certain charge? I think, with this type of card, you are very much at risk for losing whatever you have loaded on the card to fraudulent charges. Save up about $300 and go to the bank and apply for a secured card.  Buy items with card and immediately pay them off.  Do this for about a year and then apply for your card to become an unsecured card.  Or go to a department store and apply for one of their cards. While in London for a month about a year ago, I had similar issues. I ended up getting a prepaid chip-and-pin card that was filled with cash. I don't remember the retailer that sold me this, but I figure it'll give you something to start your search. You could use a Credit or Debit Card running in US $, drawing from your US$ account, and pay everything with it. If you pick a company with free foreign conversions, you would get the standard interbank exchange ratio every time you pay, with no fee. For the small payments where credit cards are not accpeted or useful you can convert some cash once every some month - all significant amounts should work with credit or debit card. First of all, don't be rude-I'm trying to help here.   Second, picture this scenario-  a company manages an offshore oil rig.  The employees by law have to be paid in a certain period of time.  To send paper checks to the employees who work on the oil rig would cost thousands of dollars and the employees can't cash them anyways. Thus the company requires it's employees to have direct deposit.  One of the employees can't or won't get a bank account (yes there are people like this).  How do you pay him?  A prepaid debit card solves this problem.