Robinhood Releases Crypto-Forward Debit Card

Retail trading firm Robinhood has made waves with its commission-free trading platform. With an announced mission to democratize the world of finance, the company has repeatedly upset the traditional markets.

Now, the company has announced a new offering that has another lofty ambition: with the new Robinhood Cash Card, users will be able to access their brokerage accounts from ATMs and online retailers around the world. This move into the world of payments puts Robinhood in the same playing field as finance giants Chime and PayPal.

Robinhood has high hopes for this latest service, given the company’s focus on a younger demographic, which has previously shown great excitement around the “meme stock” fads enabled by Robinhood’s trading tools. “The younger generation is debit card-primary, so that is a primary focus,” said Chief Product Officer Aparna Chennapragada.

Among other benefits of the Robinhood Cash Card is an option to conveniently round up purchases to the nearest dollar, with the remaining amount being invested in cryptocurrency or other offerings. The Cash Card will also be set up for automatic investment of a portion of users’ paychecks and may provide the chance to access direct-deposit paychecks two days early.