Are you a current or prospective Aspiration customer curious about all of the changes the service has seen in the past year or so? Let's take a closer look at these adjustments, including the good and bad. Review:
Aspiration:
Less than a year ago, I reviewed the online banking service Aspiration including their “Do Well. Do Good” message. While that mission has remained, Aspiration’s accounts have undergone multiple significant changes since my initial video — with another disappointing round of adjustments arriving just this past week. So what exactly has been going on with Aspiration? Let’s look at three big things you should know.
Let’s start off with the latest news about Aspiration, which is their updated interest rates and new structures for obtaining these APYs
When the Fed cut interest rates for the first time last year, most high-yield savings accounts adjusted their APYs to reflect the change. Meanwhile, Aspiration took the opportunity to completely overhaul the way customers earn interest, instating monthly deposit or balance requirements. Well, with this past week’s emergency rate cut, the company was at it again, instating further changes that make it more difficult for account holders to accrue interest.
In an email sent to customers on March 4th, 2020, Aspiration not only slashed their standard APY to .5% — which is in line with the half a point cut from the Fed — but also quietly increased the minimum monthly deposit you’ll need to make to obtain this interest rate to $2,000 instead of $1,000. Alternatively you can hold a balance of at least $10,000 or sign up for their Planet Protection program to get this 0.5% APY. Incidentally, it doesn’t seem as though these updates have yet made it to Aspiration’s homepage or account pages at the time that I’m editing this video.
Speaking of Planet Protection, Aspiration also introduced a new APY tier that incorporates this option meant to offset your driving and keep you carbon neutral. Those who deposit at least $2,000 a month AND sign-up for Planet Protection can earn 1.50% APY on their balance of up to $10,000. That would be pretty good except that Planet Protection costs $5.99 a month or $59 a year, so that could really cut into whatever interest you might be earning.
But, once again, if you believe in Aspiration’s mission and want to support it, this may be worth it for you personally.
Prior to this round of changes, Aspiration has also put a cap on one of their most popular features, which is ATM reimbursement
Once upon a time, Aspiration boasted unlimited ATM fee reimbursements for its customers. Sadly this particular perk was cut back during one round of overhauls. Now reimbursements are capped at 5 a month. To be fair, I’m not sure how many people really need to take out cash more than that — although those traveling internationally could certainly be an exception. So while disappointing, this was far from the most egregious policy adjustments Aspiration has made in my opinion.
On a positive note, one area where Aspiration has actually improved since my initial review is with their cash back debit card
At the time of my initial review, Aspiration’s cash back debit product didn’t seem like a fully baked idea, with information on what purchases earned what proving hard to come by. To their credit, the program is much clearer now and even allows customers to earn up to 5% back when shopping with certain companies. Currently Aspiration has a list of more than 20 companies were users can earn .5% cash back with their debit card purchases. On top of that, by shopping at certain brands that are members of the Conscience Coalition, users can score 3, 4, or 5% back on purchases. Some of the brands in these tiers include popular options like Warby Parker, Blue Apron, Toms, and more. For the record, all other debit purchases currently yield 0.05% in cash back.
Personally, I have yet to put this updated program to the test since I have mostly moved away from Aspiration, but I do have to give them props for building a much more coherent and beneficial debit product with this set of changes. I should also mention that Aspiration has introduced a Plant Your Change program where user can elect to round their debit card purchases up to the nearest dollar with the spare change going toward planting trees. This is a unique implementation of the round ups structure that I think actually fits well into Aspirations overall product — plus it is completely optional.
Overall, from a pure banking perspective, Aspiration has really taken a tumble in my view.
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