I got an email from NetSpend today:

NOTICE OF CHANGE IN TERMS TO YOUR SAVINGS ACCOUNT AGREEMENT Effective July 1, 2016 (the “Effective Date”), we are making the following changes to your Savings Account associated with your NetSpend® Visa® Prepaid Card Account:

1. We are changing the minimum Average Daily Balance requirements to receive the interest rates applicable to your Savings Account to the following:

• For an Average Daily Balance of $1,000.00 or less, the interest rate paid on the entire balance will be 4.91% with an Annual Percentage Yield (APY) of 5.00%.

• For an Average Daily Balance that is more than $1,000.00, the interest rate paid on the portion of the Average Daily Balance which exceeds $1,000.00 will be 0.49% with an APY of 0.50%, and the interest paid on the portion of the Average Daily Balance which is $1,000.00 or less will be 4.91%. The APY for this tier will range from 5.00% to 0.54%, depending on the balance in the Savings Account.

Tl;dr, the promotional rate on NetSpend-branded cards is changing from the first $5,000 to only the first $1,000.

Obviously, this makes it less attractive as you need tons of accounts to make any interest out of it now.

As far as I can tell, Brinks Prepaid Mastercards (backed by NetSpend/Metabank) still offer 5% on the first $5,000. So that is an option. But perhaps Brinks will also lower the benefit they offer soon. I just got the email for my Brinks card as well! It's all going away.