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Stock trading platform Robinhood seeks to dive deeper into financial services with the launch of a banking product later this year.
Robinhood Banking, set to be rolled out this fall, will offer checking and savings accounts for its gold members featuring services that aim to solve some of the challenges with legacy bank accounts, said Deepak Rao, vice president and general manager of Robinhood Money.
“We want to have the full wallet share with customers,” Rao told Banking Dive, “but we wanted to do it in our style and make sure that we build something that’s no longer reserved for ultra-wealthy individuals.”
While announcing the banking product last week, Vlad Tenev, chairman and CEO of Robinhood, also said the firm is adding two other new features, Robinhood Strategies and Cortex.
Strategies is an advanced investing service that offers expert-managed goal-aligned portfolios and personalized insights with a cost cap of $250 per year for gold members and no management fees on amounts over $100K.
Cortex is an upcoming artificial investment tool that will provide real-time market analysis, investment opportunity identification, and market news updates.
Robinhood’s credit card, rolled out last year, has around 200,000 cardholders and 3 million people on the waitlist. Following that, the fintech wanted to build an accessible product that members would use to invest and manage their wealth and handle all of their financial transactions.
“Bank account is still, by far, the center of gravity of most financial transactions,” Rao noted.
The Menlo Park, California-based fintech aims to bring a “private banking experience” to its members, including offering the option to apply for a bank account from the app, send money across the world in over 100 currencies and access private banking services like estate planning and professional tax advice.
Robinhood’s new feature of getting cash delivered to the doorstep physically within an hour will be a differentiating factor and eliminate the need for an ATM, Rao asserts, since bigger banks typically take several days to give money.
The fintech plans to have an app dashboard where a customer can get a money order and have it sent to a recipient or order foreign currency to be delivered to their doorstep, the executive added.
He said the banking product will be available to current Robinhood customers as well as those new to the fintech.
