Zolve, a neobank aimed at helping U.S. immigrants receive financial offerings upon arrival in the states, has launched out of beta to provide banking, credit cards and student loans for citizens from Australia, Canada, Germany, India, and the United Kingdom.
Raghunandan G, CEO and founder of the San Francisco and Bangalore based startup, found that banks in the U.S. (and in many other countries) rely on credit scores to determine applicants worthiness and potential. Raghu – as he prefers to be called – noticed many U.S. immigrants couldn’t obtain a bank account or credit card without first establishing a line of credit that could take months or years to nail down.
Zolve emerged from stealth in February with a $15 million seed round led by Accel and Lightspeed. Blume Ventures and several high-profile angel investors, including Kunal Shah (founder of Cred), Ashish Gupta (formerly the MD of Helion), Greg Kidd (known for his investments in Twitter and Ripple), Rahul Mehta (managing partner at DST Global) and Rahul Kishore (senior managing director of Coatue Capital), also participated in the round, TechCrunch reported.
Now, with funding in the bank, Zolve is launching three neobanking products for U.S immigrants:
- Zolve Credit Card (powered by Mastercard): An unsecured, high-limit credit card with 0% APR for the first six months*, no application fee, and no foreign transaction fees.
- Zolve Deposit Account: A deposit account, FDIC insured up to $250,000, with no minimum balance requirements and no social security number required to apply.
- Zolve Banking Mobile App: On-the-go mobile app integrated with Apple Pay, Google Pay and Venmo that provides customers with payment alerts, reminders, direct deposits and other financial tools and educational materials to aid responsible credit building.
According to Zolve, customers can apply online in under 10 minutes by providing proof of a valid visa and passport and has seen over 40,000 signups since its beta launch.
“We created Zolve to level the playing field for international students and working professionals looking to come to the United States by providing them with the toolset they need to embark on their American dream,” said Raghu. “Our mission is to create a financial world beyond borders with equal access to high-quality banking products for global citizens from every country.”
Raghunandan acknowledged that a handful of other startups are also attempting to solve this challenge, but he said other firms are not making use of a consumer’s credit history from their origin nation.
Fair, Varo, Simple and Sable have similar neobanking offerings to remove the hurdles that come with non-resident wealth building.