Tag: wells fargo

Killer Mike Opens Up Black Owned Digital Bank For ‘The People’

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Doin it for the culture! Activist and Atlanta born rapper Michael Render AKA Killer Mike; along with civil rights advocate Andrew Young; and Ryan Glove — have raised over $3M to fund a new digital bank. The efforts of the project are geared toward Blacks, Latinos and business owners.

Securing the coins from private investors, Greenwood seeks to bridge the gap of financial services and banking to the underprivileged. Users have access to Apple, Samsung, Android pay, virtual debit cards, P2P transfers, mobile check deposits; and free ATM usage in over 30,000 locations.

Details of The New Digital Bank

Although the bank is solely electronic right now, the ‘Run The Jewels’ rapper says they do plan to work with brick and mortal banks in the near future. He hopes to provide deposits to aid strengthen other Black owned banks.

Other perks involved are:

  • 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 whose a Greenwood customer.

With such a high climate of racial injustices and financial disadvantage, its time now to collect the dividends that have been due to African Americans and minorities for so long. According to Brookings, a major disproportion of wealth was found staggering. At $171,000, the net worth of a typical white family is nearly ten times greater than that of a Black family ($17,150) in 2016.

“We have the skills, talent, and energy to compete anywhere in the world, but to grow the economy, it has to be based on the spirit of the universe and not the greed of the universe”, Andrew Young told Black Business.

black business

Thus he continues, “Killer Mike, Ryan, and I are launching Greenwood to continue this work of empowering black and brown people to have economic opportunity”.

Greenwood Derives From History

Undoubtedly Greenwood is a collaboration of an executive team that includes BofA vet Aparicio Giddins; and former Green Dot man David Tapscott. Both are Black, a fact noted by Killer Mike; who took the opportunity to take a chance with Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf. Moreover Scharf recently claimed “there is a very limited pool of Black talent to recruit from”.