The popular trading company, Robinhood announced on Tuesday, March 22, 2022, that it is replacing its current debit card with a new “Cash Card” that will have a ton of new features and benefits.
The new card is available for use on ATMs, in-person and online transactions. It will also help users automatically invest in crypto by rounding up their purchases to the nearest dollar, with the surplus change going to stock or crypto.
If you shop from Amazon and spend $25.25 with your Cash Card, Robinhood will round the payment up to $26 and use the extra $0.75 to buy crypto on your behalf. Users who use this feature will receive a weekly “bonus” from Robinhood worth up to $10 as an incentive to keep using the feature.
This is called “spare change investing”, as only tiny amounts are invested at a time, and it is being practiced by other personal finance apps such as Chime.
The company said that the new card was focused on solidifying its place within a specific market, Gen Zs. “The younger generation is debit card-primary, so that is a primary focus,” said Robinhood’s Chief Product Officer Aparna Chennapragada.
Robinhood’s new card will let users have separate accounts for investing and spending. This will replace the company’s existing cash management product, which puts investing and spending cash in a single brokerage account.
The company, which started as an easy-to-use stock trading app for regular people, has grown quite massive since the coronavirus lockdown in 2020. It got listed on the NYSE in July 2021 and has since added crypto coins to its product offering.
This reward scheme by Robinhood might lead to many people investing in cryptocurrencies. Many crypto enthusiasts would want to take advantage of this new feature and effortlessly stack up some crypto in their wallets as they shop.
