Finance Everywhere, Member Exclusive

‘Adding Betterment, we’re targeting 200 million Powered By customers by the end of 2021’: Dosh’s Ryan Wuerch

  • Challenger banks are increasingly adding rewards programs to their debit and credit card offerings.
  • Dosh, a shopping app that provides cashback on purchases, has teamed up with challenger bank, Betterment.
close

Email a Friend

‘Adding Betterment, we’re targeting 200 million Powered By customers by the end of 2021’: Dosh’s Ryan Wuerch

As challenger banks expand their capabilities, many with debit and credit card offerings are adding in rewards as a way to attract, retain, and engage their customers. These upstarts frequently turn to partners for their rewards programs.

Fintech firm Dosh gives millions of users cashback when they shop at top retailers that are using cash back as an acquisition tool.

Merchants use Dosh to acquire new customers. Brands like Instacart and Dunkin use the consumer shopping app as a transaction-based, new form of advertising. Instead of hard to analyze radio, TV, and out of home campaigns, Dosh gives merchants the ability to make cash offers to get new people shopping in their stores or online. This way, they know exactly how much it costs to acquire a new customers.

Dosh recently announced a major expansion of its platform, launching with Venmo and Jelli as its first official partners. With Powered by Dosh, financial services companies can provide automatic, instant, card-linked cash back experiences for their users.

SubscribeApple Podcasts I SoundCloud I Spotify I Google Podcasts
The following excerpts were edited for clarity.

At the end of 2019, PayPal, a significant investor in Dosh, launched an integration with the firm. Venmo users can access the Dosh cashback experience inside the Venmo app, giving them access to thousands of merchants. Since that launch, Dosh has seen growing interest from other financial services firms looking to integrate rewards into their credit and debt card programs.

SPONSORED

"Since that time, we have taken the Dosh SDK that we created and delivered that directly to financial institutions and neobanks so they can deliver a rich cashback experience to their millions of consumers -- whether they utilize digital payment methods or credit cards or debit cards," said Ryan Wuerch, CEO and founder of Dosh.

Now, the fintech firm has signed a partnership with Betterment. With Dosh’s cashback experience fully integrated into the Betterment Debit Card, Betterment will offer its Checking users a seamless rewards program with offers from thousands of merchants.

"Whether it's Walmart or Burger King, cashback will automatically be delivered to Betterment debit cardholders without them having to do anything," he said. "They'll receive anywhere from two to three percent up to 10% or more cashback on a purchase or transaction."

After building its consumer app, Dosh has found an additional growth avenue as a rewards platform by partnering with challenger banks and payment companies. To do this, the company has evolved its product, technology stack, and teams.

The company has evolved from its early days when it had its engineers working on partner integrations. Dosh now has strategic partnerships and merchant integration teams that onboard merchants.

"We've strengthened data science, we've strengthened engineering, we've strengthened product to let that flow to the benefit of each of the partners that we're working with," Wuerch said. "Our partners are looking to be top of wallet and top of mind with their customers, so they want to create better engagement and better utilization of their products and services."

Dosh makes money by charging its merchants a marketing fee. The majority of that fee is added to the cashback a customer receives, while Dosh pockets the rest, according to Wuerch. When there's a partner involved, like Betterment, those fees are split with the partner.

For now, Dosh plans to continue to build out its consumer and platform offerings concurrently. But is is Powered by Dosh that has the largest potential for growth.

"I'll put it in perspective: we are targeting approximately 200 million consumers through our Powered by Dosh relationships by the end of 2021," Weurch said.

0 comments on “‘Adding Betterment, we’re targeting 200 million Powered By customers by the end of 2021’: Dosh’s Ryan Wuerch”

Outlier OpinionsMakers

10-Q, Member Exclusive

Can MoneyLion gain ground in the long term on the strength of its underlying businesses?

  • MoneyLion's Q4 2022 results show a profitable December -- however, the firm saw net losses for the quarter and year.
  • Opportun reported its fourth quarter 2022 results on Monday. In the revenue line, the company reported $261.9 million, missing estimates by $1.1 million.
Sara Khairi | March 20, 2023
10-Q, Member Exclusive

Is Dave a ‘fintech survivor’ after all?

  • Dave's Q4 2022 results show that this might just be the end of a rocky road for the neobank -- meanwhile, it is bracing for 2023 head-on.
  • Apple's shares regained momentum last week following Goldman Sachs analysts' optimistic outlook -- based on the firm's new product innovation and margin expansion driven by services.
Sara Khairi | March 13, 2023
Member Exclusive

Tearsheet Pro Live #1: ChatGPT, fact and fiction: What FIs should know about the future

  • In this first Tearsheet Pro Live session, editor Zack Miller interviews a Stanford professor and a machine learning scientist about generative AI.
  • Dev Patnaik and Moses Guttmann share their perspectives on the future impact of technology like ChatGPT on financial services.
Zachary Miller | March 09, 2023
10-Q, Member Exclusive

Less focus on Bitcoin and more Cash App inflows — a sound strategy for Block?

  • A week ago, Block reported its Q4'22 results with earnings missing expectations but surpassing gross profit from a year ago.
  • The surge in the stock is owing to the firm’s strong gross profit growth, which was up 40% in Q4 2022 compared to the prior year.
Sara Khairi | March 07, 2023
10-Q, Member Exclusive

Coinbase beats revenue expectations, but will its struggles end anytime soon?

  • Last week, Coinbase reported its Q4'22 results – while the exchange has been experiencing a period of financial hardships, it continues to pivot to subscriptions and generate income through charging fees on transactions.
  • The subscription and service revenues grew 34% to $283 million, accounting for almost 50% of overall revenue for the quarter -- keeping the company afloat.
Sara Khairi | March 02, 2023
More Articles