Challenger bank HMBradley launched this week in the face of global uncertainty, with the backing of PayPal founder Max Levchin, and already has about 25,000 waitlisted sign-ups, according to CEO Zach Bruhnke.

“We are certainly in a place where almost undoubtedly people are going to lose their jobs,” Bruhnke told Bank Innovation. “It’s never a good time to be in a pandemic, but we’re giving people a way to save. We’re going to see a lot of banks go on credit holds. It’s a unique opportunity for us.”

HMBradley is an online-only banking platform backed by San Marcos, Calif.-based Hatch Bank. The platform, which officially launched Monday after a two-month pilot, offers a single transactional account with spending functionality that also acts as a high-yield savings account, depending on how much customers save.

“It’ll operate like a checking account with the interest rate of a savings account,” Bruhnke said. There are four different savings tiers that offer between 3% APY to 0.5% APY.

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HMBradley also offers a credit product, which periodically delivers pre-qualified credit offers tailored to individuals. Customers can opt in for a soft credit pull each month, and the company uses various data to underwrite customers, including cash flow, direct deposits, savings account information and TransUnion data. Bruhnke said the interest rates range from 13.9% to 22.9%. Already, Bruhnke is eyeing expansion into home loans, auto loans and insurance products, although he did not specify a timeline for these.

Hatch Bank pays HMBradley based on asset size evaluated each month, Bruhnke said, “so as we grow deposits, we make money on that.” The company can also lend portions of deposits off the bank’s portfolio, he noted, which gives the bank a “unique advantage because we’re not borrowing debt capital in an environment like this.” The company also makes revenue from credit interest and interchange fees.

But despite the company’s focus on savings, “it’s certainly not ideal to launch a new banking brand while the entire country — and the world — is in the teeth of a global pandemic,” said Peter Wannemacher, principal analyst at Forrester, a market research firm specializing in technology.

Of more concern is whether HMBradley’s value proposition for customers is differentiated. “Is it just going to be yet another banking brand fighting a kind of ‘savings rate war?’” Wannemacher said, “that’s a war most firms don’t want to be in.

“While it’s not a perfect time to launch, it’s too soon to know whether the COVID-19 pandemic — and the economic shocks it has ignited — will adversely affect HMBradley in the long term,” he added.

And Bruhnke is thinking long term. For now, the CEO is anticipating a “slower and smarter” growth trajectory that’s sustainable, saying “we’re building this company to last generations, not years, and if you last 100 years you won’t be on a crazy trajectory.”