Charlie’s new banking app aims to help seniors ‘make the most of their limited resources’

Image credit: Charlie

Different demographics often have different banking needs. So it’s no surprise that we’ve seen a number of fintech startups offering banking services aimed at certain populations based on factors like age and ethnicity.

For example, many fintech startups are targeting younger users – from Greenlight to Step to Current and now, Acorns.

But far less common are fintechs dedicated to serving older members of our society. enter Charlie, a new startup offering banking services for the 62+ community, launched today with $7.5 million in funding. The company’s goal, according to co-founder and CEO Kevin Nazemi, is to help retirees and soon-to-be retirees “make the most of their limited resources.”

Features include faster access to your Social Security check, 3% income on balances and no monthly fees or minimum requirements. Users can also get all the “frictionless, embarrassment-free discounts” just by using their debit cards, Nazemi said, so they don’t have to do things like show an AARP card or their ID to prove they’re a senior. Like many fintechs, Charlie is not a bank – its banking partner is Sutton Bank.

One of the things Charlie is designed to address is the fact that until a person retires, they accumulate assets. But when they retire, they enter “deaccumulation mode.” It can be scary and challenging. To help older adults adjust, Charlie will allow customers to withdraw their social security benefit up to four weeks early.

While older adults typically aren’t as tech-savvy as younger generations, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed many members of that population to do more things online, including banking, Nazemi noted. Still, the company’s website and app are designed “to make the interface user-friendly for those with visual or physical limitations.”

The venture marks a new area of ​​interest for Nazemi, who previously co-founded two companies in the health technology space – Oscar Health and Renew Health, a technology-driven health platform focused on retirees. After joining with Ivan Nausieda, Ibrahim El Tatawy, Ramesh L. Nori and Richard Kang in 2021Charlie was born.

Better Tomorrow Ventures led the company’s funding round, which included participation from Expa, Carbon Health Chief Product Officer Ayokunle Omojola and Gokul Rajaram.

Charlie co-founder and CEO Kevin Nazemi

Jake Gibson, founder of Better Tomorrow Ventures, believes that “the vast majority of founders, including fintech, tend to build products for people who look like themselves.”

“That’s why we have so many repetitive neobanks, social investment apps, etc. Meanwhile, you can probably count on one hand the number of fintech companies serving the needs of seniors, despite such a large population,” wrote him via e-mail. “I’ve known Kevin for many years and he’s a formidable operator, with experience founding Oscar Health and then Renew, and he’s been passionate about this issue for a long time. When he came to us for advice on the problem, the market, the product approach, etc., we jumped at the chance to lead his first round.”

However, it is not other fintechs that Nazemi sees as Charlie’s biggest competitors. There are big banks — which he said are often designed for people who work full-time and generate income — and community banks, which can offer a better consumer experience but still aren’t built for the unique needs of the 62+.

Down the line, the goal is to build an age-based, risk-tolerance-based deaccumulation ETF, Nazemi said, as well as a product called a home pension, where Charlie could enable users to use some of their equity to supplement. their social security check.

“W“I want to build a solution where we say hey, let 90% of it still go to your legacy, but if you choose, you can have 10% of it become income for you,” he added.

Charlie also plans to release a range of tools around fraud, starting with senior-based transaction monitoring to help “catch fraud before it happens.”

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