LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aspiration, the financial firm with a conscience, today launched a first of its kind new account that puts more money into people’s pockets and an unparalleled power to do good into their hands.
Available to everyone within the U.S., the new Aspiration Spend & Save Account would put an extra $545 into the pocket of the average American every year based on Aspiration calculations, and ensures customer deposits are 100% fossil fuel-free. It offers:
- Unlimited cash back rewards on every dollar spent
- Extra rewards for shopping at businesses with strong employee and environmental practices
- Zero fees including free access to every ATM in the world
- Deposits that are 100% fossil fuel free
- Up to 2.00% Annual Percentage Yield interest on deposits, which is up to 200 times more than that offered by America’s largest banks
- Service charges such as wires provided at cost
- Deposits in the Aspiration Spend & Save Account are FDIC Insured up to $250,000 per depositor by being swept to FDIC Member institutions.
As with all Aspiration products, the only fee customers pay is the Pay What Is Fair fee they choose (even if it is zero) and Aspiration commits to donating 10% of its earnings to charities.
The Aspiration Spend & Save Account is unique in addressing both the economic and ethical failures of traditional banks. Today, most Americans pay hundreds of dollars in fees every year on their “Big Bank” checking and savings accounts and earn nearly zero in interest payments. Cash Back rewards have become nearly exclusive to wealthier credit card customers and have all but disappeared for debit cards. Meanwhile, the biggest banks use over $100 billion1 a year of their clients’ deposits to fund pipelines, oil drills and other projects that speed up climate change. With every swipe of their debit cards, Americans are putting themselves deeper in the hole financially and helping to speed the destruction of the planet.
"We are excited to bring this groundbreaking product to the tens of millions of Americans who share our belief that profit and purpose should go hand-in-hand,” said Andrei Cherny, co-founder and CEO of Aspiration. “We have always strived to provide our customers with the best financial products while helping them make the world a better place. This new account further brings together the best of both worlds, by providing our customers with unique financial benefits like unlimited cash back rewards, while providing extra rewards for spending at businesses with a conscience. Driven in part by our proprietary Aspiration Impact Measurement (AIM) social conscience scoring algorithms, Aspiration’s conscious spending rewards are the first of their kind.”
Aspiration has won acclaim for its innovation. In 2015, Aspiration launched the Aspiration Summit Account, which was quickly named “Best Checking Account” in America by Money magazine in part because of its Pay What Is Fair fee structure which lets customers set their own monthly fee, even zero. In 2017, Aspiration launched AIM (Aspiration Impact Measurement) -- a patent-pending first-of-its-kind invention that allows customers to easily track their impact and make daily spending decisions based on how the places where they shop treat People and the Planet. In January 2019, the Aspiration Summit Account was named a NerdWallet “2019 Best Checking Account,” beating out a wide range of banks and every fintech in America.
Today, the Aspiration Summit Account is being replaced by the new Aspiration Spend & Save Account. In order to have the freedom and flexibility to deliver this improvement for its customers, Aspiration spent the past year becoming the first U.S. neobank to end its reliance on a third-party bank account structure. Over the course of 2018, Aspiration received licenses and approvals from FINRA and 50 states and territories. The company also hired nearly 100 new team members, including a new banking operations team in Portland, Oregon, and built new technology that allows consumers to conduct banking services through a cash management account directly at Aspiration. And deposits in the Aspiration Spend & Save Account are FDIC Insured up to $250,000 per depositor by being swept to FDIC Member institutions.
For more information, visit: www.aspiration.com.
About Aspiration: Aspiration is a fast-growing financial firm with a conscience dedicated to bringing fair, sustainable banking and investment products that help its customers both “Do Well” and “Do Good.” By allowing its customers to pay what they think is fair; committing to donate 10 cents of every dollar of earnings to charity; helping its customers spend, save, and invest sustainably; and bringing high-quality financial products to all, Aspiration is revolutionizing the financial industry and changing it for the better. Aspiration is a certified B Corp. Headquartered in Marina del Rey, CA, Aspiration has nearly a million signups and has received more than $100 million in backing from investors including Allen & Company, the Omidyar Network, Alpha Edison, Social Impact Finance, Joseph Sanberg, Jeff Skoll, Orlando Bloom and Doc Rivers. For more information, visit Aspiration.com.
1 Banking on Climate Change: Fossil Fuel Finance Report Card 2018, by Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, Sierra Club, Oil Change International, Indigenous Environmental Network and Honor the Earth.
