Marqeta (NASDAQ: MQ), best known for its “modern-card” management and issuance platform, is now moving into banking.
According to a company release, Marqeta has revealed seven banking products, including:
- Accounts – Demand Deposit Accounts
- ACH with Plaid
- Direct Deposit with an Early Pay option
- Cash loads and fee-free ATMs
- Bill Pay
- Instant funding
The services are available now to Marqeta’s card customers.
Jason Gardner, founder and CEO of Marqeta, said that consumers now expect banking services to be digital-first and mobile-friendly while delivered by a trusted brand. People simply do not visit physical bank locations like they once did – or use a physical card, for that matter.
” [they] will instead begin their banking relationship on a mobile phone, which is doubling as a payment tool. Marqeta for Banking is fully designed to help customers meet the needs of today’s changing behaviors while building products for tomorrow’s consumer.”
According to Marqeta’s 2022 Consumer Money Movement Report, more than a quarter (26%) of consumers surveyed who use a traditional financial institution as their primary bank also have a bank account with a digital bank.
While Marqeta’s services are available for all of its customers, Fintechs or neobanks can leverage the services to provide digital banking with a modern tech stack.
Simon Khalaf, CPO at Marqeta, said their banking as a service opens up a new use case for their customers, helping them build virtual banking solutions, embedded wherever they need them.
As the saying goes, we need banking services, but we do not really need banks. The transition to digital banks (chartered) or neobanks has put traditional brick-and-mortar operations on notice to close branches, reduce employee headcount, or risk survival. This is a difficult task for old banks as the transition is easier said they done. Of course, this is good for Fintechs that can provide better, less costly financial services to a larger audience.
Sanchan Saxena, Vice President of Retail Product at Coinbase – one of Marqeta’s BaaS clients, explained their neobanking vision:
“… we continue our commitment to building safe, trusted, and easy-to-use products that make spending and earning cryptocurrency seamless, we’ve seen many benefits from the flexibility of Marqeta’s banking as a service tools.”
In the end, financial services will be ubiquitous and the best providers will make them efficient and unobtrusive all without the need to queue in line for a bank teller.