Finally, a bank account that helps you live your life.

Colin Walsh
3 min readApr 13, 2017

We know most people don’t want to spend time thinking about money. Living life is more fun.

We’d rather plan travel and weddings, research buying our first car or home, or share big dinners and long nights out with friends.

But we can’t pursue our own paths through life without money. And managing money poorly means not reaching the full potential we imagine for ourselves and our families.

So, the question we’ve asked as we build Varo is: how do those of us who hate thinking about money manage it well enough to live the lives we want to lead?

We’re designing the Varo app by listening to the stories of ambitious, responsible people who hate thinking about money. And we know that “make a better budget” or “track your spending each day” just won’t cut it for advice.

Take Peter. He works in finance in Los Angeles, and makes enough money to cover his rent and a new car he bought for himself after a recent promotion. Peter also loves music festivals, and has a habit of buying tickets during the initial sales rush to events from Coachella to Bonnaroo.

A few months ago, Peter volunteered to pay for a group house for a concert, but forgot about the impact it might have on his finances. When his credit card bill came in the mail, the balance easily exceeded what he made over two pay periods!

He tried to pay it down with his savings, but that wasn’t enough — so he started accruing 25% interest on an expense he could have easily managed if only he had an app that would help him out.

We hear these stories a lot. All it takes is a few forgotten expenses or wrong bill due dates in your head to tumble from a healthy financial state to zero savings and high debt loads. And no one wants to have to ask their parents for help.

At Varo, we want to prevent these situations from happening in the first place.

Planning a big trip? Making a job transition? Moving to a new city? Varo can help you save more than you think you need, so you always have a buffer for when life happens.

And when things inevitably happen and you need to borrow a little to cover the gap, Varo can offer you flexible credit* and help set up a repayment plan that works on your schedule.

At Varo, we don’t believe in turning people who don’t want to spend too much time managing the details of their money into spreadsheet-driven budgeters. Life just doesn’t work that way.

Instead, we’re building a bank account** that allows you to see your full financial picture — one that has your back in both blue skies and stormy weather.

Varo is banking that helps when you need it — and gets out of your way when you don’t.

You can get early access to Varo by signing up here.

*Line of credit offered by Varo Money, Inc. under state license; subject to application approval.

**Deposit account services provided by The Bancorp Bank; Member FDIC. The Varo Visa® Debit Card is issued by the Bancorp Bank pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc and may be used everywhere Visa debit cards are accepted.

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Colin Walsh

Founder and CEO @VaroBank. Varo is an entirely new kind of bank, fully digital, mission driven, FDIC insured and designed to be a bank for all of us.