Green Dot today unveiled GO2bank, a new mobile banking app that spurred the company to invest heavily in automation functionality during its development.

Specifically, the Pasadena, Calif.-based Green Dot developed new technology around automating direct deposit setup, Abhijit Chaudhary, senior vice president of direct-to-consumer products, told Bank Innovation. Green Dot is leveraging a partnership with Plaid to automatically integrate external payroll software within the new mobile app. This will allow a customer to select their specific payroll provider on the GO2bank app, sign in to their payroll account and click a button that allows them to move their direct deposit into the GO2bank account.
“The last thing you want your customer to do is go somewhere else. I didn’t want them to download another app, I didn’t want them to go to any other website,” Chaudhary said. The feature is designed to mitigate friction within the traditional direct-deposit setup process, wherein the customer usually goes to their bank to collect their routing and checking account numbers and then signs into a separate payroll platform to establish the direct deposit.
Green Dot is also currently developing a chatbot for customer service inquiries, Chaudhary said. The bank is training the AI in preparation for an integration with GO2bank later this year. Additionally, Green Dot has incorporated its automated notification system in to the new app, so customers are alerted every time deposits are made, and if abnormal transactions appear on their accounts.
Founded in 1999, Green Dot made a name for itself by providing banking services for companies like Google, Uber, Stash and Walmart, along with its reloadable prepaid card business. Green Dot also serves more than 33 million customers through its direct-to-consumer products and its banking-as-a-service partnerships with Apple, Amazon and other businesses.
In 2019, Green Dot launched its first digital bank brand, Unlimited by Green Dot, and is not sunsetting that brand amid the GO2bank launch. However, Green Dot will devote its future innovations to GO2bank, seemingly exclusively.
“For the longest time, Green Dot has been known for creating a lot of products,” Chaudhary said. “We wanted to stop doing that; we wanted to create one product, and for the foreseeable future we are going to continuously keep investing in this one product.”
Shares of Green Dot Corporation [NYSE: GDOT] were trading up 7.6% to $59.66 at market close. The bank has a market capitalization of $3.19 billion.





