Savings App Qapital Adds Checking Account, Debit Card To Its Services

Savings app Qapital is now offering a new checking account and debit card to its customers, in addition to its already existing savings account.

According to news from TechCrunch, the new services will combine account aggregation, savings and spending options all in one place.

Founded over four years ago in Sweden as a competitor to Mint in the personal finance management (PFM) category, Qapital came to the U.S. in 2014 and shifted focus to helping consumers manage their day-to-day spending through an automated savings tool central to its service.

“PFM is a good starting point but isn’t very useful,” said Qapital CEO George Friedman. By aggregating data around all of a user’s spending and also taking into account the things they want to save for, he believes the Qapital mobile app can be much more useful. “If we know what you want to achieve and what your goals are, we can help you get there.”

Now Qapital users won’t have to transfer their savings back to their primary checking account once they’ve reached a goal. A user saving up for vacation or another big ticket purchase can now do so with Qapital’s debit card. And the company is aiming to provide a best-in-class checking account with banking partner Lincoln Savings Bank, eliminating ATM, overdraft and other fees charged by some of the incumbent banks.

The hope is that in the long term, the Qapital mobile app will provide enough value to users that they’ll decide to make it their go-to account for all their needs — including setting up direct deposit.

“To us, it really comes down to making the value proposition compelling in how we combine spending and savings together,” Friedman said. After testing the new savings app with 10,000 of its existing users, Qapital will be launching the product more widely.