You may have heard about fintech companies, technology platforms that link customers to banking services. These companies disrupt traditional banks and credit unions, often with lower fees and higher returns on some products. Sometimes, they even offer faster access to your paycheck and other deposits.
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Military Connect is announcing its new partnership with MoneyLion, a fintech company that offers banking products, financial education, and help building credit.
Banking Products
MoneyLion’s main product is the same thing you get from a traditional bank: a checking account. Its checking account is called MoneyLion Spend and it offers access to your pay up to two days early and cashback on purchases.
For military members and families who are constantly on the move, the network of 55,000 Allpoint® ATMs allows for constant access to their accounts.
The company also offers a membership program, MoneyLion One, in which members get additional cashback and refunds on foreign transaction fees. Regardless of membership, customers’ deposits are insured by the FDIC, their debit cards include Mastercard’s normal protections, and they can track their spending through MoneyLion’s platform.
In addition to checking accounts, MoneyLion has a partner search tool for financial products like personal loans up to $100,000, credit cards, and high-yield savings accounts.
That platform includes lots of other great tools, like free money transfers and financial education tools.
Financial Education and Tools
Most banks have a blog, but MoneyLion has a large library of financial education content. It addresses topics as basic as overdraft fees and as complicated as how different side hustles compare when it comes to pay frequency, time requirements, and total earnings.
The educational articles, of course, point to MoneyLion and its partners’ products frequently, but the lessons are legitimately well-done and informative. Articles like “What is a Personal Loan? Features, Rates, and How It Works” and “How Many Bank Accounts Should I Have?” are useful for anyone who doesn’t feel fully in control of their finances right now.
In addition to the broad educational articles, MoneyLion has a budgeting platform for tracking spending by category over time.
It even includes a community feed where members can exchange financial tips, ask each other questions, and launch small surveys.
Some articles focus on how to make more money via apps or hustles and how to build credit responsibly, which is salient to the rest of MoneyLion’s products.
Credit and Wealth Building
MoneyLion’s credit and wealth tools start with a free credit monitoring app that includes real-time alerts and personalized tips on how to build your credit. Would it help you to consolidate debt with a loan? To pay off a credit card? To close old accounts? It even includes a fraud detection tool to help you stay ahead of anyone trying to use your credit for their financial goals.
For people wanting to take it one step further, MoneyLion has another membership option called Credit Builder Plus, which it boasts has helped members raise their credit score by 25 points in 60 days. Users get all of the free credit tools and can access a loan of $1,000 with no hard credit check. While there’s no credit check to start, MoneyLion will report payments to the three major credit agencies, so that the account being in good standing will improve their credit long term.
There’s also a managed investment tool for members of the MoneyLion One program mentioned under banking products near the start of this article. MoneyLion Managed Investing accounts can be started with just $1. You can buy into portfolios from industry experts with options for every risk level and for how long you plan to keep your money invested.
With Round Up, you can make a few cents from every transaction go into your investment accounts in order to plus up your auto investments, set to your preferred schedule.
Put it all together, MoneyLion and Military Connect are offering a full suite of financial products through their partnerships, from checking to savings to credit to investing. And you can choose whether to use only the free products and educational materials or to spring for one of the memberships for more financial tools.
Learn More About MoneyLion: MoneyLion.com
Join Military Connect®: MilitaryConnect.com/join
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