The first LGBTQ digital bank launches in the U.S.
- The LGBTQ community in the US is estimated to include 30 million people with $1 trillion in spending power.
- Underserved by incumbent banks, Daylight launches to better serve the needs of the LGBTQ community.
Daylight is the first LGBTQ digital bank in the U.S.
The new challenger bank provides its LGBTQ customers with benefits like Visa-branded cards in their preferred name (and not necessarily their legal name), a network of finance coaches, unique personalized feeds on financial advice, tools to monitor and improve spending habits, along with a space for donations to LGBTQ charities.
Daylight, which was known as Be Money before it took on customers, will offer consumers benefits such as money management on LGBTQ specific life events such as gender transitioning, having children and retirement.
The launch and rebranding comes at a time when the worldwide pandemic has severely strained the financial health of LGBTQ people in the U.S. Poverty, unemployment and discrimination underscore some of the harsh realities facing LGBTQ Americans since the beginning of the pandemic.
Human Rights Campaign’s recent research brief found that 20 percent of LGBTQ people in the U.S. believe that their personal finances are worse off than they were in the previous year. 62 percent of LGBTQ Americans reported facing financial challenges as a consequence of their gender identity or sexual orientation, according to Experian’s 2018 LGBTQ Money Survey. The community on average carries higher debt and less insurance.
Although there are an estimated 30 million LGBTQ Americans with $1 trillion in spending power, the community still feels underserved within the incumbent financial industry.
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“LGBTQ people still face systemic discrimination from incumbent and challenger banks alike, including lower mortgage approval rates, higher fees or risk assessments, impersonal and insensitive services,” said Daylight’s CEO Rob Curtis. “For example, when addressing a gay man ‘sir, what does your wife do?’ or misgendering a trans person. The financial system has had a long time — and an incumbent advantage — to address these issues and has failed. We are taking matters into our own hands.”
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