Varo Bank is here — America’s first digital consumer bank
On February 10th, 2020, I posted an article announcing Varo’s FDIC approval. It was a historic moment for the banking industry at the time. Today, I announce the official opening of Varo Bank.
In the few months between these posts, a series of crises have challenged the very foundation of our society — Covid-19, soaring unemployment, and widespread calls for social justice — making a new national bank, committed to improving financial health and inclusion, more culturally relevant than ever before.
A BRIEF LOOK BACK
Since the framing of the U.S. constitution, America has grappled with the role of banks and how they best serve the interests of society. Alexander Hamilton argued for strong central banks to boost the economy, while Thomas Jefferson appealed for local banks to support communities and farmers. The national versus local debate continues to this day.
Our country has experimented with a series of public and private banks throughout the course of our history, which were chartered specifically to serve hardworking, everyday Americans of modest wealth and income — but eventually economic self interest won out and the modern US banking system we have today largely helps the haves and shuns the have nots.
THE PRICE OF FINANCIAL INEQUALITY
This system operates in a society that has seen decades of wage stagnation for the average American worker while inflation has raised the price of all household necessities. The majority of Americans have experienced financial erosion. As a society, Americans’ financial lives often serve as the principal pillar of self-definition, a barometer of self-worth and well-being. Financial stress contributes to strained relationships, housing insecurity, workplace stress and ultimately to physical health problems including chronic diseases and depressed immunity. Taken on a societal level, these issues compound into worse real world outcomes for everyone in our communities. Covid-19 and the structural unemployment to follow in its wake has simply exacerbated these issues.
CHARTING A NEW COURSE
Varo’s founders — with decades of experience in financial services — understood this dynamic and had a plan to tackle it head on. From its inception, Varo’s founders envisioned a new, fully digital bank that would use technology to help everyone improve their financial wellbeing — and from these building blocks of healthier individuals and households, chart a new course of a more just and equitable society. Varo’s vision leverages modern technology to leapfrog the myriad barriers to change that have constrained the pace of progress. Varo Bank aims to democratize access to premium banking services designed around the needs of all Americans. Anyone with a smartphone, living anywhere in the country, with any range of financial assets can benefit from Varo’s tech-driven banking revolution.
VARO FUTURISM
Financial health is not the human end-goal of banking: rather it’s what we at Varo describe as the New American Dream. Financial well-being is a facet affecting psychological, physical and emotional well-being. It returns the bank to a position in service of the community, and through technology captures the spirit of safety, security, and a sense of satisfaction in the pursuit of happiness.
As the pace of change increases in our everyday lives — and brings forward a future context to the present — our commitment to our core Varo vision grows stronger. With purpose and supported by a spirit of innovation, Varo, as a chartered national bank, will work hard everyday to bring to life its vision of financial inclusion to communities across the country.
