Fintech Atmos Financial Partners Directly with Five Star Bank in a Sustainable BaaS Model

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Jun 25, 2024, 05:30 ET

Atmos Financial has partnered with Five Star Bank since 2023 to offer climate finance products and services in a safe and sound manner

SAN FRANCISCO, June 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Atmos Financial, PBC continues to advance its mission to help decarbonize the banking sector and advance the rapid transition to a clean economy through its partnership with Five Star Bank, a New York State chartered bank.

Atmos Financial established a direct partnership with Five Star Bank in 2023 to provide various banking services as its sponsor bank. Sponsor banks are chartered banking institutions that work in close partnership with fintech companies like Atmos to develop and offer unique and proprietary bank products with prudent oversight and controls in place to ensure the integrity of risk and compliance outcomes for customers.

Since completing the migration of tens of thousands of bank accounts from Atmos's prior partner, a middleware software provider, to Five Star Bank, Atmos account holders have continued to benefit from the continuing integration and direct partnership with Five Star Bank, a key distinction from the previous set up.

The new partnership provides Atmos account holders with access to a greater range of services and products. And, importantly, they are able to play an active role in supporting a clean economy and combating climate change. In 2023, Atmos prevented 153,040,411 pounds of carbon from entering the atmosphere by using customer deposits to fund clean energy projects and build 12,300 kw of energy through solar installments across the country, in partnership with its installer network.

"Our decision to migrate our services to Five Star represented a strategic opportunity for Atmos," said Pete Hellwig, Atmos Financial Co-Founder. "We have developed a strong working relationship with the entire Five Star team across its lines of business and support and control functions while building our clean energy lending line of business. We elected to migrate our deposit banking services to Five Star Bank in order to build a stable, climate-forward banking model that will last generations."

Atmos Financial was one of Five Star Bank's first partners with integrations directly into the Bank's core operating system. Through its direct Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) model, Five Star Bank owns customer ledgering, money transmission and other core banking services. Five Star Bank also provides Atmos customers access to FDIC insurance.

"Atmos is a valuable strategic partner that allows us to expand beyond our traditional geographic reach and connect with customers who are passionate about green finance, an area Atmos has tremendous subject matter expertise in," said Reid Whiting, Chief Banking Officer for Five Star Bank. "In a highly regulated industry, our ability to understand and manage risk is paramount to operating a successful BaaS business unit. We are proud to partner with Atmos to provide products and services in a manner that respects the integrity and strength of the banking system and safeguards our customers."

About Atmos Financial, PBC

Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Atmos Financial is a financial technology company that offers bank accounts to customers, as well as distributed clean energy lending solutions to banks, credit unions and installers. Atmos Financial allocates 100% of deposits to climate-positive infrastructure.

Atmos Financial is a technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by our partner institution, Five Star Bank, Warsaw NY (Member FDIC).

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SOURCE Atmos Financial