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Greenlight, a financial literacy app and debit card for kids, has partnered with U.S. Bank to help more families teach and learn money-smart habits. Starting today, eligible new and existing U.S. Bank checking accounts include free access to Greenlight Select.
“U.S. Bank is […] a leader in banking innovation with a robust track record of impactful partnerships and a long-standing commitment to financial education,” says Tim Sheehan, CEO and co-founder of Greenlight. “Our goal is to serve as many families as possible. Partnering with leading financial institutions like U.S. Bank that already have deep relationships with parents is a great way to meet families where they are.”
What’s Included With Greenlight Select?
The complimentary Greenlight Select plan comes with debit cards for up to five kids, parental controls and chores and allowance features. It also offers monthly rewards of 1% interest on savings balances up to $5,000, and families can work together to create and achieve savings goals.
All Greenlight plans include access to Level Up financial literacy games, which teach essential money skills using national standards-based curricula.
While kids are spending, saving and learning, parents can:
- Send money to their kids
- Set spending and withdrawal limits
- Freeze cards
- Track transactions and transfers
Sheehan points out that U.S. Bank customers can use their preferred mobile app to access Greenlight.
“U.S. Bank is the first financial institution to offer Greenlight through an embedded mobile app experience, leveraging Greenlight’s new software development kit. This provides parents with easy access to Greenlight all within the U.S. Bank mobile app.”
Greenlight Select was created specifically for use in the Greenlight for Banks program, which includes other institutions such as United Community Bank, Guilford Savings Bank and Morgan Stanley.
How To Qualify for a Free Greenlight Account
To qualify for complimentary Greenlight access as a U.S. Bank customer, you must use a U.S. Bank Smartly Checking account as the funding source for your Greenlight account. U.S. Bank Smartly Checking accounts are the only accounts eligible for Greenlight Select through this partnership. You will not qualify if you have a Safe Debit Account with U.S. Bank. Also, Greenlight may charge a fee if you stop using a qualifying account as the preferred funding source.
What’s Included With Smartly Checking?
U.S. Bank Smartly Checking accounts include overdraft protection, interest earnings and Smart Rewards relationship benefits. Smart Rewards is a free rewards program that offers banking perks and savings—such as loan discounts, ATM rebates, financial consulting and more—with relationship tiers determined by your combined banking balance. Smartly Checking has a waivable monthly fee of $6.95.
Features Not Included With Greenlight Select
If you currently use the standalone version of Greenlight, switching to Greenlight Select through U.S. Bank could be a downgrade. Greenlight Select users will miss out on some features included with Greenlight’s Core, Max and Infinity plans. Greenlight Max and Infinity, for example, include investing features that let kids trade stocks and ETFs with parental approval.
Greenlight Select also lacks cash back on debit card purchases, priority customer support and safety features such as identity theft protection, SOS alerts and crash detection.
“Customers can choose to sign up for a standalone Greenlight subscription if they would like access to other tiers,” explains Sheehan.
Do You Have To Join U.S. Bank To Use Greenlight?
You do not have to join U.S. Bank to use Greenlight. The platform will continue to offer its kids’ banking app and debit cards separately from U.S. Bank through its parent company, Greenlight Financial Technology.
Current Greenlight customers will retain full access to their accounts with no changes to their plans. According to Sheehan, “As of today, there are no Greenlight features that are exclusive to U.S. Bank, and our partnership will not affect existing Greenlight customers.”
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