Electronic Transfer Account - ETA

The Electronic Transfer Account program allowed people to receive money from the federal government, even if they didn't have a bank account.

If you were in the military, or if you received social security, or if you were a foreign dictator receiving payments from the CIA, and you didn't happen to have a bank account, you might have an electronic transfer account in order to get the money the government owed you. (On second thought, the foreign dictators probably received cash stuffed into non-descript briefcases...but that wouldn't be an efficent way to distribute social security payments).

With the proliferation of other electronic payment options, the U.S. Treasury Department ended the ETA program in 2018.