Debit cards are leveling up as they receive upgrades from banks and fintechs alike.

“We’ve enabled push-to-debit so that we continue to give optionality for our customers who need to make immediate payments,” said Chris Ward, executive vice president and head of product and operations for PNC Treasury Management. “The beauty behind immediate payments is you know right away whether or not it worked. If it didn’t work, you go start to cure the problem.”

While credit cards are often the focus of new rewards programs and membership perks, debit cards — staples in consumers’ wallets and loved by millennials — are now starting to receive a makeover. 

Pittsburgh-based PNC, which has $459 billion in assets, serves corporate and institutional clients through its treasury management business. The bank launched its “Direct to Debit Card” last week, with a new function that allows clients to push payments directly to the end consumers’ debit cards. According to Ward, the solution works well for paying employees and gig workers, as well as for issuing refunds. Payments are pushed in real time to consumers’ debit cards using their 16-digit debit card number, with no bank account information needed.

PNC clients can push payments to Visa or Mastercard debit cards at any institution. According to Ward, the solution works with some reloadable prepaid cards depending on the institution. The bank developed Direct to Debit Card through a collaboration with the Visa Direct real-time payments solution. Ward added that PNC Treasury Management has its own innovation team, which consists of about 12 people who built Direct to Debit Card in-house with assistance from the bank’s technology employees. 

Houston-based banking fintech Save, meanwhile, is creating a new way for consumers to gain rewards through their debit cards. The 18-month-old startup invests $1 for every $1 customers spend on their Save Debit Invest card, and any returns generated go to the customer — minus a fee of 35 basis points. The startup also offers a savings account that invests any interest and provides the returns to the customer minus the same fee, meaning the money in savings is completely safe and the interest is all that’s put at risk.

Save charges a fee only if it generates returns for a customer, and uses rules-based automated investing to pick portfolios for customers based on their risk appetite. The startup invests through exchange-traded funds designed to provide stable returns, according to the company.

“We have two larger customer groups. One is the millennial, Gen X individual who potentially doesn’t have a lot of savings but will benefit from the debit card,” said Michael Nelskyla, Save founder and CEO. “We have the other group, which is the baby boomers, or as I’m going to call them, more hard-core savers or yield hunters.” 

Sid Browne, former head of the quantitative analytics and strategies groups at the Goldman Sachs Firmwide Risk Management Department, serves as the company’s chief investment officer. Between the savings and the debit card products, Nelskyla said Save has about 4,000 customers signed up for its waiting list. Save plans to start rolling out its products this year. Radius Bank is the debit card’s banking partner, but the company didn’t disclose the partner bank for the savings account or the amount of funding Save has raised.

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Improving the debit card experience is a growing trend in financial services. In addition to being the partner bank for Save’s debit card, Boston-based Radius Bank is building its own brand by bundling savings and debit rewards through its Rewards Checking account, which offers cash-back for debit transactions. Green Dot does the same through its Unlimited by Green Dot account. 

“A lot of people don’t use credit cards so, if you’re a person who doesn’t, this could potentially be attractive,” Stephen Greer, senior analyst at Celent, previously told Bank Innovation about Radius’ Rewards Checking.