Spending App Wedge Debuts Visa-Powered Debit Card

Spending platform Wedge and Visa have launched a debit card tied to the Wedge app.

Wedge announced the partnership in a Wednesday (Feb. 15) news release, saying it would allow it to expand its offering, which lets users spend from “balances held at separate banks and financial platforms.”

The Austin-based company says its app lets users “fund everyday purchases by using any asset in their Wedge wallet, including stocks, cryptocurrencies, ETFs, and cash.”

“Partnering with Visa will expand our reach and bring Wedge’s innovative technology to more customers worldwide,” said Billy Roberts, Wedge CEO, in the release. The Wedge Visa debit card is issued through Wedge’s program manager in conjunction with a bank partner, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A.

Meanwhile, recent research by PYMNTS finds 37% of consumers store money in general-purpose payment apps such as PayPal.

The study, “Money-Storing Apps Gain Favor With Consumers,” a PYMNTS and Treasury Prime collaboration, found that peer-to-peer transfers are a big draw for these apps, “with 76% of general-purpose app users using them to send and receive money in the last year and 71% using them to buy goods or services online.”

The report also found that just 7% of consumers currently store money in merchant apps, while 15% of consumers said they keep money in both types of apps, a sign of the convenience and added perks of using money-storing apps.

The use of money-storing apps is a positive sign for retailers, as the study found that “consumers who load money at least once each week spend $300 more annually than those who load money less than monthly.”

Consumers who add money at least weekly load an average of $250 to general-purpose apps and spend $471 through those apps per year. The same consumers loaded $163 on average and spent $405 in the past year when using merchant apps, the study found.