Greenlight Extends Family Finance Offering to Banks

Family finance app Greenlight has unveiled an integration for banks and credit unions.

Greenlight for Banks, announced in a news release Wednesday (March 29), lets financial institutions (FIs) add Greenlight’s app to their financial service offerings.

“In building Greenlight for Banks, we spoke with financial institutions across the country and found that many were looking to solve the same problem of making financial education more accessible,” said Matt Wolf, Greenlight’s senior vice president of business development.

“Partnering with banks and credit unions will allow us to help even more parents teach their children invaluable financial knowledge and skills.”

With the app, banks can offer customers Greenlight’s tools for earning, saving and spending. In addition, parents can automate allowances and send money instantly, while kids and teenagers get “hands-on money management experience with parental supervision,” the company said.

The launch of Greenlight for Banks follows last month’s debut of Greenlight for Work, the company’s first employer-centric financial literacy tool.

Speaking with PYMNTS’ Karen Webster last year after the launch of the company’s Family Cash Mastercard, Greenlight Co-founder and CEO Timothy Sheehan said his company’s research showed that 90% of parents wish they had saved more for their children’s futures.

Calling it “a massive problem,” Sheehan and his team acknowledged most parents didn’t have the extra cash to set aside and so began thinking about ways to make investing simpler for these families.

“Is there a way we could come out with something like we have where it’s a 3% cash-back card, but the cash back could be automatically invested into [exchange-traded funds] and make sure they’re diversified?” Sheehan told PYMNTS. “But kind of make it automatic so they don’t have to drastically change their behavior?”

And as noted here earlier this year, with inflation squeezing household budgets and only a small percentage of Americans able to demonstrate financial literacy, consumers are seeking better ways to manage their funds.

“This financial gap presents an opportunity for banks and credit unions to increase their customer loyalty by offering budgeting tools and financial guidance,” PYMNTS wrote.

Technology is playing an increasingly major role in promoting financial inclusion among bank customers in the U.S., fueling a rising demand for personalized banking experiences to help them pursue their financial goals, such as budgeting tools. And, as PYMNTS’ long-running research into consumer interest in financial innovations has shown, customers are willing to find new financial institutions if this need isn’t met.