Introduction

Netspend’s Savings program provides customers a facility to save for short and long term goals. Eligible users can enroll online to opt for transfering funds to and from their prepaid account or they can set up automatic transfers from the prepaid account to the savings account whenever a load or electronic bank transfer is received.

Eligibility

The eligibility criteria to join the savings program are:

• The account is active
• The primary owner on the account is not subject to any IRS-mandated backup withholding
• The primary owner on the account has provided SSN
• The account doesn’t have a negative account balance
• The primary owner on the account provided consent to receive electronic communications from NetSpend (with a condition that if the cardholder withdraws the consent, the savings account is immediately closed)
• The primary owner on the account agreed to all legal savings terms and conditions.

Functionality

The Savings API allows partners to:

• Get savings account information for their program, which is configured as part of the partner’s engagement with Netspend
• Enroll a user into a savings account for their program
• Deposit funds from the primary account into the savings account
• Withdraw funds from the savings account into the primary account
• Get status of a deposit or withdrawal

Bonus Savings

Netspend’s Bonus Savings program, offered as a configurable option in the Savings feature, enables a partner’s account holders to receive a “bonus" high interest rate for their savings account if they meet certain quarterly criteria.

Qualifying debit card purchase transactions must settle in a spending account during the quarter for the higher interest rate to apply. For example, transactions that post in the 1st calendar quarter but settle in the 2nd quarter are counted as a qualifying debit card purchase transaction for the 2nd quarter.

Note: The account holder needs to re-qualify each quarter for bonus savings interest rates.

For purposes of quarterly interest payment, interest is calculated and paid after EOD transactions are posted, which occurs approximately 3 hours before midnight CST.

Example of Qualifying Criteria

In this example, for each calendar quarter, the account holder must meet the following qualifying criteria to receive the bonus rate:

• Receive at least $3,000 in direct deposit.

• Make at least 15 qualifying debit card purchases

Example Bonus Savings Tiers

Below is an example of adjustments to base and bonus rates that can be configured to be applied to tiered amounts in the savings account.

Qualifying Criteria Limitations

Qualifying purchase transactions do not include:

• Transactions completed before the account holder opens the savings account, as they were done before the savings account was opened.
• Disputed transactions reversed within a calendar quarter. However, if a transaction is posted before the end of the quarter and was disputed in the following quarter, then the transaction does count.
• The following types of purchases:
  • External bank ACH transactions
  • ATM transactions
  • Over-the-counter withdrawals
  • P2P transactions
  • Debit card transfers
  • Transfers to or from a Savings Account

Quarterly Savings Statement for Bonus Savings

The account holder sees the Bonus Savings rate and interest paid for that rate, on their quarterly statement.

Automatic Savings Transfers

Customers who have enrolled for the savings account program can opt for scheduled or activity-triggered automatic savings transfers. These transfers are configured by way of “preferences” and are funded only through the main spend account.

Note: No fees are associated with Automatic Savings Transfer.

Activity-Based Automatic Savings Transfer Preference

The following transaction activities can trigger an automatic savings transfer:

• Bank transfer (including payroll, government benefits, tax refunds, and so forth)
• Cash load
• Debit card transfer
• Direct deposit
• P2P transfer

Note: Though multiple preferences can be set, the triggers for more than one preference cannot be the same. For example: two (2) preferences for automatic savings transfer cannot have debit card transfer as their trigger.

The account holder can set the amount of an activity based transfer as fixed or a percentage of a transaction:

• Fixed Amount
  • Any fixed amount, such as $23.00, of each deposit made to the spend account is automatically transferred to savings.
• Percentage
  • Any percentage of a transaction, such as 70%, of each deposit made to the spend account is automatically transferred to savings.
  • The percentage is a percentage of a transaction and cannot be a percentage of the account balance or available balance.

Schedule-Based Automatic Savings Transfer Preference

When the trigger is schedule-based, then automatic savings transfers can be set with the following criteria:

• Frequency
  • Daily
  • Weekly
  • Monthly
• Day of the week (if frequency is weekly)
• Day of the month (if frequency is monthly)
  The following are examples of schedule-based triggers:
• Every 23rd of the month
• Every Tuesday
  Note: If the event is scheduled on a date that's not present in every month, for example, 31st, then the schedule occurs on the last date of the month, for example November 30, or February 28.
  The account holder can set the amount of a scheduled transfer only as a fixed amount:
• Fixed Amount
  • Any fixed amount, such as $23.00, of each deposit made to the spend account is automatically transferred to savings.

Automatic Savings Transfer Account Holder Agreement

The Automatic Savings Transfer feature has a separate account holder agreement than the Savings feature. The automatic savings transfer holder agreement terms are in effect only if:

• The account holder is enrolled in the savings program
• The account holder has accepted the savings agreement terms and conditions
• The account holder has accepted the automatic saving account terms and conditions

Sample Flows

Create and Fund a New Savings Account

The diagram below shows a potential flow where the partner is promoting to an existing customer, Sue, the option to create a savings account, with “bonus savings” and “automatic transfer” features. The feature looks good to her, so she decides to create the savings account and then add funds to it.

Set Up Some Automated Savings Transfers

At some point, Sue realizes she would like to build some of her savings using the automatic savings transfer feature. She opts to:

• Have $50 per week put into savings
• Have $100 of each direct deposit paycheck put into savings

Withdraw Funds from Savings to Make a Purchase

In the potential scenario before, Sue has been good about putting away savings, but doesn't have quite enough in her main debit card account to make a purchase. She decides to pull from savings to load up her card to be able to make the purchase.

Savings Webhooks

Payload data type: “savings”

For more information on webhooks, see Webhook.