Blend and Astra Partner on Card Funding of Deposit Accounts

Blend and Astra have partnered to enable financial institutions to add card funding to their deposit accounts.

With this collaboration, financial institutions that use Blend’s platform for digital banking solutions will also be able to use Astra’s instant-payments-as-a-service offering to enhance the digital onboarding experience for consumers looking to fund their new deposit account, the companies said in a Monday (Aug. 5) press release.

“By eliminating the need to find and enter routing and account numbers that are required with ACH transfers, debit card funding offers a quicker and more seamless account funding process, enabling consumers to activate new accounts for use in a single session,” Blend said in the release.

Card funding is one of consumers’ most preferred funding methods when opening a new deposit account, according to the release.

With the integration of Astra’s Card to Account payment solution into Blend’s Deposit Account application flow, Blend customers will be able to accelerate onboarding for new accounts, encourage more activated accounts and reduce the likelihood of consumers abandoning the application process, the release said.

The integration also reduces the need for support teams to do manual outreach and follow-ups to get accounts fully funded, per the release.

“Today’s consumers expect a frictionless, real-time product experience, and that starts at account opening,” Gil Akos, co-founder and CEO of Astra, said in the release. “Financial institutions and FinTechs need to deliver a best-in-class onboarding flow to win new customers — instant account funding is the perfect solution, leading to improved activation rates of 30% or better on day one.”

Consumers want finance to be as easy as a food-ordering app, want their banking needs to be anticipated and want to establish trust with a financial institution, Blend founder and head Nima Ghamsari told PYMNTS in an interview posted in March 2022.

“As a new consumer coming into the ecosystem, I’m starting to ask, ‘Who can serve me in the most proactive way? Who can serve me in a way that makes sense for my specific financial situation? Over time, who can serve me across my needs when it is time to buy a home?’” Ghamsari said.