Radius Bank, an online-focused institution based in Boston, has partnered with Brex to offer a corporate cash management account that earns company rewards beyond credit card payments.
The account, Brex Cash, is a corporate credit card with a bank account layered into it. It pays 1.6% interest on balances and offers rewards on every payment type, including ACH, wire transfer or their Brex credit card. It also has no fees on wire transfers, ACH payments, payroll runs and credit card payments.
The two companies say this is the first product of its kind. It's the latest move by the $1.4 billion-asset Radius to extend its banking-as-a-service offering to fintech partners.
“With the banking-as-a-service platform that we built, we believe that partnering with the right types of fintechs will be a mutually beneficial relationship for the fintechs and the bank, and surely help us on our path to generate more and more deposits outside of the traditional banking network," said Mike Butler, Radius' CEO and president.
The bank has made four other partnerships in the past 12 months, with MaxMyInterest, Huddl, Stackin’ and NorthOne. Seven more are planned by the end of the year.
The bank argues the new offering will attract interest because it is unique.
“There's nothing in the industry today that combines all those things into one product,” said Chris Tremont, executive vice president of Radius.
Though the new Brex offering will compete with Radius Bank’s own corporate banking products, Butler said he isn't worried.
“We aren't scared by direct competition,” he said.
The next iteration of the partnership will probably be Radius offering the product to its own customers.
Butler and Tremont declined to share the financial details of the partnership.
While some bankers are still concerned about the idea of fintech partnerships, Radius has a different attitude.
“We decided several years ago that we were going to embrace this fintech evolution and rather than trying to ignore it or compete against it,” Butler said. “And in so doing, we developed a culture inside the company and some expertise on how we can minimize the risk of working in a partnership environment. But culturally we made a very strong, unwavering commitment to do it.”
