SmartyPig announced Tuesday that it is working with The Bancorp (TBBK) in an effort to resell its consumer savings goal-setting technology to the prepaid card companies and proxy banks that use The Bancorp as a means of storing cash.
As a part of the partnership, the Des Moines personal financial management provider, which also does business as Social Money Systems, is selling the bank its back-office savings account platform, CorePro, as well as its customer-facing Goal Saver tool.
Goal Saver allows banks and other financial services companies to encourage their customers to create goals through the use of social media, among other methods.
In the wake of the deal, there is a large customer base for these tools, says Michael Ferrari, a SmartyPig co-founder. "I think it's going to be a pretty cool deal, but it's going to take some time to get started."
Bancorp will begin selling SmartyPig's services within the next several months, a spokeswoman says. The two companies have been working together since the spring.
Indeed, the marriage seems like a potential slam dunk, says Philip J. Philliou, a payments consultant.
"Savings products attached to or linked with prepaid cards are a natural extension product for prepaid," he says. "As prepaid cards continue to become more mainstream and mature, adoption for products such as Social Money's will grow exponentially. With prepaid at the core, we should expect to see a multitude of extension products and services coming to market."
SmartyPig is still allowing users who want to set savings goals directly with the company to do so at smartypig.com. Those deposits are being held at BBVA Compass Bank, the U.S. unit of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA. The bank began taking U.S. deposits for SmartyPig in 2010. Before that, deposits were held with West Bancorp Inc. of West Des Moines.
