Recently Greenwood secured $3 million in seed funding from private investors as the first digital banking platform for Black and Latinx people and business owners. Greenwood features best-in-class online banking services and innovative ways of giving back to Black and Latinx causes and businesses.
Greenwood’s founders include:
- Andrew J. Young, civil rights legend, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and former Mayor of Atlanta
- Michael Render, aka Killer Mike, rapper and activist in Black financial empowerment
- Ryan Glover, Greenwood Chairman and founder of Bounce TV network
Greenwood’s initial products are savings and spending accounts that come with a stunningly designed black metal debit card for customers who sign up by the end of the year. Advanced features like Apple, Samsung, and Android pay, virtual debit cards, peer-to-peer transfers, mobile check deposits, and free ATM usage in over 30,000 locations are offered with no hidden fees. Customers who invite their friends to open accounts receive cash awards as a thank you from Greenwood. All deposits are FDIC insured by a partner bank.
Additionally, Greenwood plans to work with brick and mortar minority-owned banks to provide deposits to help strengthen historically black banks.
Greenwood has three key avenues to support Black and Latinx causes and businesses:
- For every customer sign-up, Greenwood will provide five free meals to a family in need.
- Every swipe of a Greenwood debit card will prompt a donation to UNCF for education, Goodr to feed the hungry, or NAACP to support civil rights.
- And every month, Greenwood will provide a $10,000 grant to a Black or Latinx small business owner that is a Greenwood customer.
While the bank doesn’t open until January, the company launched its website on Thursday and there is already a waiting list for those who want to open a Greenwood account.
“I will say we’re in the tens of thousands,” Glover told CNN Business in an interview. “That number is increasing by the day.”
Before it was destroyed nearly a century ago, Glover said, a dollar spent in Tulsa’s Greenwood district would circulate 36 times before leaving the community.
“Today, a dollar circulates for 20 days in the White community, but only six hours in the Black community,” Render said in a written statement. Black Americans are twice as likely to be denied mortgage loans by traditional banks, but minority depository institutions have a better track record of lending to non-White individuals.
“This lack of fairness in the financial system is why we created Greenwood,” Render added.
Greenwood bank is poised to be modern banking for the culture.
