Update: 12/8/2018: These are now shipping for those that got in on the Beta. Subject line is ‘Your Acorns Visa debit card is on the way!’. Hat tip to reader Jeff L
Acorns has announced that they will be launching a debit card called Acorns spend. For those not familiar Acorns is an investment app that aims to help consumers ‘micro invest’ by rounding up purchases to the nearest $1 (for example if you make a purchase of $0.50 then it will be rounded up to $1 and $0.50 will be transferred to your investment account). Previously you’ve only been able to link other debit & credit cards to Acorns, whereas Acorns Spend will be a debit card managed by Acorns.
Acorn Spend will cost $3 a month and that includes the fees for Acorns & Acorns later as well (normally $1 each). It includes free ATM withdrawals (and reimbursements when ATM fees are charged). It looks to be mostly targeted towards unbanked customers, touting the benefits of digital direct deposit and mobile check deposits. Most readers will be primarily interested in that local places you visit every day offering up to 10% cash back. Unfortunately Acorns doesn’t provide a lot of detail about how that benefit will work, but I’m guessing it’ll be similar to the Square cash debit card that recently launched.
Acorns Spend will launch on November 1st, 2018 and they are accepting 100,000 cardholders to begin with. It looks like 35,000+ cards have already been claimed, so it might make sense to sign up now if you want to secure a card. It’s interesting that debit card rewards programs seem to be making a bit of a come back, with Discover also offering a 1% cash back alternative as well. It’s hard to say how useful the Acorns spend card will actually be, if the rewards program sucks then I wouldn’t give it a second look with other alternatives such as Charles Schwab & Denizen offering more useful accounts without any monthly fee.
