T-Mobile’s Mobile Money wants to be your new hassle and fee-free bank account
It seems like T-Mobile doesn’t have any shortage of major announcements to make these days. Their latest one seems to be quite different from what we’re used to, though, with the company seemingly wanting to be your new bank account.
They’re calling it Mobile Money, which they hope will “transformer smartphones into personal money managers that can free people from excessive fees they often pay to use their own money.” So how will it work? T-Mobile will issue you their own-branded prepaid Visa card and an app that you can use to help manage the money on it (including easily loading it up with all the cash you want).
T-Mobile’s proposition is to get rid of the excessive fees usually associated with most bank accounts. That includes no charge for activation, ATM withdrawals from 42,000 in-network ATMs, monthly maintenance, replacement cards, no minimum balances, and no more overdraft fees.
And if you’re worrying about how flexible a bank account that isn’t really a bank account can be, T-Mobile says they have all the important features folks like, such as support for direct deposit, bill payments and more. T-Mobile is confident that their “experience” in financing (that is, financing you the phones they sell on their new Simple Choice plans) is enough for them to be taken seriously as a viable alternative to traditional banking.
T-Mobile’s planning to make cards available by early February, but you can get a head start by signing up at their website (or wait until their cards start appearing in select Safeway stores). Let us know if you’ll be giving this a shot by dropping a comment below.
[via T-Mobile]