How Welcome Tech Will Use $35 Million in Fresh Funding to Serve Unbanked Hispanics

Welcome Tech, a provider of digital financial services to unbanked and underbanked Hispanics, plans to leverage $35 million in new funding it secured last week to grow its customer base by about 1 million and add more financial services, such as a pathway to credit, to help bring its customers into the mainstream of financial services. To date, Welcome Tech has raised $50 million. 

In late 2020, the Los Angeles-based fintech launched a debit card issued through Green Dot Bank. Cardholders can deposit money into their card account through Welcome Tech’s remote check deposit application, which the company developed in-house, or through the more 90,000 merchants in the Green Dot network. In addition to its debit card, Welcome Tech offers a mobile wallet—branded as PoderCard—that can store the debit card and access Welcome Tech’s other services.

Consumers can sign up for a Welcome Tech account using their Matricula Consular card, which is an identification card issued by the Mexican government through its consulate offices to Mexican nationals living outside the country.  

Welcome Tech differentiates itself from other financial-services providers focused on the unbanked in that the company concentrates on unbanked and underbanked Hispanics. Although this group represent the largest minority population in the United States at 62.8 million, less than half of Hispanic households are fully banked, according to Welcome Tech. 

“We have built a bilingual user experience in which customers can receive statements in Spanish, English, or both,” says Amir Hemmat, co-founder, president, and chief executive of Welcome Tech. “We also offer services beyond financial transactions to help customers improve their financial literacy so they can leverage that knowledge to obtain other financial services.”

Welcome Tech, which was founded in 2010, has 3 million customers, about 75% of whom consider the company their primary financial services provider, Hemmat says. “When you look at other [demographics] underserved by financial-services providers, many of those consumers don’t have a primary relationship with a provider, they have multiple relationships,” he adds. “Our aim is to build a banking relationship with our customers that delivers value to them as opposed to extracting value from them.”

Welcome Tech also created a rewards program that pays cash to customers educating themselves about financial services. Customers can earn between $1 to $100 for completing a variety of financial services-related tasks, such as taking a survey or participating in a focus group. Earned rewards are immediately deposited into the customer’s account. 

In addition to financial services, Welcome Tech also provides access to health-care services through a monthly subscription plan. Customers pay $10 for access to medical, dental, vision, lab-related, and pharmacy providers offering discounted rates. Discounts can be as much as 80% in some cases.

“We are aggregating a historically fragmented community under a single platform,” says Hemmat. “The size of our user base gives us collective [bargaining] power to leverage, which in turn drives better pricing and experiences from service providers.”

In keeping with its focus on bilingual services, Hemmat adds the company has partnered with a telehealth provider with bilingual physicians and patients in its network. Hemmat sees additional opportunities to offer access to insurance and legal services through its subscription plan.

“When it comes to customization and personalization in financial services, the underbanked and unbanked are an overlooked market,” Hemmat says. “Our aim is to build a [financial-services] platform that focuses on customer needs first so that we can build trust and engagement, and deliver value that is relevant to our customers.”