Systems and methods are provided for providing and funding an emergency prepaid card. According to one aspect, a request for emergency funds is received by a payment network from a customer. The customer's identity is verified, a transaction to fund an emergency account is authorized, an issue code is generated, and the issue code is provided to the customer. The issue code and an emergency prepaid card number are provided to an activator of the prepaid card, and the issue code is validated. The emergency account is funded and associated with the card number, and the emergency prepaid card number is activated.