Green Dot, a Pasadena, Calif.-based fintech with a banking license, appears ready to go all-in on its banking-as-a-service platform business.

Executives announced plans during the firm’s first-quarter earnings call yesterday to invest an incremental $60 million in the second half of 2019 for the purpose of “aggressively marketing” new products set to launch over the next year or so. The new spending also will advance the development and deployment of its next-generation BaaS platforms.

Bank Innovation previously reported on the new products, which will heavily target Gen Z consumers, as well as the BaaS platform iterations in Green Dot’s pipeline.

CFO Mark Shifke said he expects the investment to deliver 1 million incremental active accounts, more than half of which could be enrolled in payroll direct deposit, by the end of 2019. The additional accounts could deliver incremental lifetime revenue of $200 million to $300 million, he predicted.

As a result of the investment, Green Dot now expects second-quarter revenue of $261 million, versus the $283 million consensus, and full-year revenue of $1.11 billion, short of the $1.14 billion consensus. Wall Street didn’t take kindly to the news, as the company’s stock was down 29% in pre-market trading and had not recovered as of late Thursday morning.

On the call, however, CEO Steve Streit touted the potential for existing and new partnerships to fuel future growth. He said current clients Intuit, Apple, Uber, PayPal and investing app Stash have all expanded their offerings into new products and services using Green Dot’s BaaS platforms and APIs.

“We have patiently and prudently socked away cash on the balance sheet for just this occasion,” Streit said. “We believe now is the time to invest in our destiny while still being disciplined on our ROI hurdles.”

Partnerships on the rise

On the call, Streit also announced a slew of new partnerships and partnership renewals. Although he declined to say anything definitive on a 2020 renewal of the company’s Walmart MoneyCard contract, he said Green Dot believes it has “a strong and vibrant partnership” with Walmart and that the companies are “actively working on several programs together.”

Streit noted that Wealthfront has signed on as a BaaS client following the investment app’s launch  of a cash account in February that already has garnered more than $1 billion in deposits.

“Wealthfront now wants to do to banking what it did to investing and has chosen Green Dot’s BaaS platform as the best way to get the job done,” Streit said, adding that Wealthfront customers would gain the ability to automatically pay bills and deposit their paychecks directly into their Wealthfront account.

Furthermore, Streit announced a multi-year partnership with Rapyd, a London-based fintech payments provider backed by Stripe, which will be using Green Dot’s network to facilitate cash payments for goods and services in the U.S.

Eric Rosenthal, VP and GM of Americas at Rapyd, told Bank Innovation that the partnership will provide its merchant clients a turn-key solution for accepting cash payments through their digital platforms. While there are “classical e-commerce use cases,” the network integration also poses opportunities for digital banks looking for the ability to allow small businesses to put cash into their bank accounts or for global shipping companies to accept cash payments from small and mid-size businesses around the world that may not have credit cards or access to other methods of payment, he explained, calling the Green Dot announcement “step one of a multi-faceted partnership.”