The 40,000 people on Volt’s waiting list can finally expect to get access to the neobank’s services.
While Volt will not launch publicly until the beginning of 2020, the FinTech firm has begun to onboard people on its waitlist.
Customers who sign up can expect a base interest rate of 2.15% on savings, no strings attached.
However, the launch in February will come months after challenger bank competitors Xinja and 86 400 both launched their services in September.
Co-founder and CEO Steve Weston is not concerned, telling Business Insider that Volt is “building a very different bank and doing more than just offering customers a bank account via smartphone”, saying that the much of its business will come through its partners, similar to how UK challenger bank Starling Bank operates.
Deciding not to reveal who those partners are, he added that people will understand why Volt has taken longer to hit the market than its customers when it reveals who the partners are.
Weston also made a swift jab at the other challenger banks, saying, “The other neobanks have done a really good job regarding technology and acquiring customers but the question is, when will they ever generate a profit? Because the sort of business they’re doing today is not profitable.”
A raft of challenger banks like Volt, Up and Judo have hit the Australian market after the Australian Prudential Regulation (APRA) released new restricted authorised deposit-taking institution (ADI) licences in May 2018.
The ADIs made it possible to open new banking companies Down Under.
Volt does, however, stand out thanks to it being the first one to receive an unrestricted ADI licence.
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