Payment Cards
We give you a payment card if you've been granted help to pay for some urgent, unexpected or one-off costs. This can be things like food, groceries, glasses, and dental treatment.
You must have set a personalised PIN on your payment card before you can use it. Find out how to set your PIN
Outages affecting payment cards
Sunday 6 October
On Sunday 6 October from 6am to 4pm, you won't be able to set/reset your PIN or manage your payment card. This is because we're doing some maintenance to MyMSD.
You can still use your payment card to pay for things during this time.
Monday 7 October
On Monday 7 October from 10pm to 10:15pm, you won't be able to use your payment card to pay for things or set/reset your PIN. This is because Westpac, the bank that processes payments, is updating its system.
What is a payment card
- A payment card is a reusable green card, like an EFTPOS card.
- You can use it to pay for urgent, unexpected or one-off costs. You can apply for help with these costs in MyStudyLink or over the phone.
- If your application is approved, we'll put this money onto a payment card.
- You can only use the card at the shop we assign the payment to, unless it's for food and groceries – the card will work at all major grocery stores.
- You need to spend the money within 7 days (for glasses you have up to 28 days).
Setting a PIN on your payment card
You must set a personalised PIN to use your payment card. If you haven't set your own PIN the card won't work.
If you have more than one card, you need to set a PIN for each card.
Since 23 September the last 4-digits on the card no longer work as a PIN.
How to set your PIN:
- Log in to MyStudyLink.
- Go to 'My payment cards'.
- Select the card you want to add a PIN for.
- Enter a 4-digit PIN - don’t use a PIN that is consecutive, easily associated with you (like birthdays), or the numbers on your card.
- Re-enter your PIN.
- Done! Your PIN is now ready to go.
If you can't use MyStudyLink to set your PIN, call us and say "set my card PIN". If you've registered your voice you can do this at any time without waiting to talk to a person. If you haven't registered your voice you'll need to call during our contact centre opening hours to talk to us.
Reset your PIN
You can reset your PIN by following the same steps above.
Locked card
The card will lock if you enter an incorrect PIN 5 times. You can unlock this by resetting your PIN, or wait until the next day – the card will unlock automatically at midnight.