Pinwheel has a banner year helping banks win primacy and capitalizes on momentum with three new executive hires

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Oct 30, 2023, 15:29 ET

Pinwheel doubles down on helping banks win primacy by hiring three key executives to drive the next phase of rapid growth and expansion.

NEW YORK, Oct. 30, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- 2023 was a milestone year for Pinwheel, the fintech helping banks win primacy through automated direct deposit switching and instant account funding. The company reached several unique achievements, including key partnerships with companies such as Plaid, marquee customer agreements with Amex and Citizens Bank, and continuous innovation on its Account Primacy solution suite, including the only direct deposit switching offering that covers up to 100% of U.S. working consumers. The culmination of these milestones resulted in millions of deposit switches and a 500% increase in processed transactions over the past year, marking the next major phase of growth for the company and the necessity to hire senior scale operators.

Today, Pinwheel formally welcomes the following executives to its team:

Crystal Gopman, Chief Marketing Officer, will lead brand development and go-to-market efforts to establish Pinwheel as the partner of choice for US banks seeking to accelerate primacy and deepen customer relationships. Crystal has driven brand strategy, customer acquisition, and loyalty for brands such as American Express, BlackRock, and Goldman Sachs. Crystal was responsible for creating the "Invest in something bigger" campaign for BlackRock and for building American Express' award-winning strategy to reinvigorate the value proposition of the Hilton Card.
Jeff Bailey, Chief Revenue Officer, will lead commercial growth across new and existing customers, as well as expand Pinwheel's supply-side network of strategic relationships. Most recently, Jeff served as CRO at Payscale, where he was responsible for rearchitecting and leading all revenue functions, which led to a revenue growth from $80M in 2020 to $220M in 2022. Before joining Payscale, Jeff spent ten years at ServiceSource, where he closed many complex deals ranging up to several billion dollars in revenue with companies including Cisco, Microsoft, Red Hat, Symantec, and Dropbox.
Jennifer Chao, Chief Technology Officer, will partner closely with our customers to drive continuous innovation in our primacy suite. Jennifer spent nearly fifteen years at Redfin, working her way to VP of Engineering throughout her tenure. Jennifer played a crucial role in Redfin's remarkable growth, having led its engineering efforts through its IPO in 2017 to a revenue of $2B and scaling the engineering team from 20 to 500. Jennifer also played an important role in developing the core monetization engine that helped the company navigate the 2008 financial crisis and led a pivot to virtual services in 2020, which was critical to surviving the pandemic shutdown.

"We're gearing up for a year that is hyperfocused on helping banks achieve their #1 goal, which is primacy, and we've assembled the best team to partner with the world's leading banks on this mission," said Kurtis Lin, co-founder and CEO of Pinwheel. "This team deeply understands the needs of financial institutions and the complex relationships they have with their customers. Primacy starts with deposit switching and instant account funding, but when paired with our advanced data insights, banks can create better, more informed lending opportunities and a fairer financial ecosystem overall."

Direct deposit is the backbone of a consumer's financial life. On average, a bank that employs a direct deposit switching product sees a 32% increase in customer lifetime value (LTV).

"It's our mission to create a fairer financial system, and there's no better way to do that than by partnering with traditional financial institutions to develop innovative solutions that give customers greater transparency, control, and flexibility over their financial futures," continued Lin.

Pinwheel is actively hiring to support its 2024 growth efforts. More details about open roles can be found here.

About Pinwheel

Pinwheel helps banks win primacy by making switching direct deposits easy. Through exclusive and first-of-its-kind partnerships with payroll providers, Pinwheel can instantly authenticate consumers without credentials. This new product provides best-in-class conversion, greater security, better insights, and a seamless UX for switching direct deposits at the world's leading financial institutions. Pinwheel's platform has enterprise-grade security protocols to power connections to over 1,800 platforms (covering up to 100% of US workers paid via direct deposit) and over 1.5 million employers. From that point of connectivity, leading fintechs and financial institutions (such as Block's Cash App, Citizens Bank, Acorns, Credit Karma, and more) leverage us to power direct deposit switching, earned wage access, income & employment verification, and build innovative new products. Pinwheel is trusted and funded with $77M by top-tier investors such as GGV, Coatue, First Round Capital, and more.

SOURCE Pinwheel