Personal Finance
Varo Bank Expands Its Cashback Program “Perks”
These days, there are plenty of ways for shoppers to save money. From digital coupons to price comparison tools, buying online definitely has its advantages. On top of that, in recent years, cashback marketplaces have become increasingly common, allowing consumers to earn a percentage of their purchase back as a rebate just for using specific links or using a particular card in-store. That was also the basic idea behind the Perks platform, which Varo Bank launched last summer. Now, the neobank is making updates to Perks, bringing new savings and cashback possibilities to its customers.
Today, Varo Bank announced an expansion of its Perks cashback marketplace to include new retailers and opportunities. Now, Varo debit card and Varo Believe cardholders can take advantage of both in-store and online offers from a variety of brands. Some recent additions include Levi’s, Zara, Shoe Carnival, Dell, Panera, Shake Shack, and more. For example, cardholders can currently earn 2.8% back on Panera purchases using their card, 3% cashback from Old Navy when shopping online, etc.
To find these deals, Varo customers can open their app and navigate to the Perks tab. From there, they can browse deals and offers. For online offers, users will need to tap the “Shop Now” button to complete their purchase and use their Varo card when checking out. Meanwhile, for in-store offers, customers just need to pay with their card. Note that it can take up to two weeks for cashback balances to update. As far as redeeming these cashback rewards, earned funds will be automatically deposited into Varo banking accounts once a customer accrues at least $5 in cashback. However, there is a cap of $50 cashback per calendar month that can be earned on the platform.
The expansion of Varo Bank’s Perks feature comes as inflation has led many consumers to look for ways to save. On that note, also citing inflation woes, another FinTech/neobank Upgrade recently rolled out a similar cashback marketplace. Of course, both services bare resemblance to other popular platforms such as Rakuten.
Overall, these updates to Perks are great news for Varo customers — especially those who regularly shop online. That said, given the number of shopping portals now available, it may behoove savvy users to compare offers between Perks and other options like Rakuten. At the same time, those seeking faster cashback may prefer Varo’s platform thanks to those automatic transfers once that $5 threshold is reached, whereas Rakuten only sends outs quarterly payments. Meanwhile, with competition growing in the neobank space and inflation still impacting consumers, we can surely expect further cashback offering to arise as well.
