Dish Network-owned Boost Mobile is stepping into monetary companies with the launch of OmniMoney, a primary banking service aimed toward individuals who can’t entry conventional financial institution accounts. It’s a service that Boost CEO Stephen Stokols hopes will make the model “stickier to existing customers” and entice new ones. This comes at a time when the corporate very a lot wants to draw new clients, because the Boost model continues to lose subscribers and Dish is struggling to get a viable 5G community off the bottom. At least a part of that plan contains providing “basic no-fee banking services” besides, effectively, there are charges.

To be clear, Boost Mobile isn’t turning into a financial institution. It’s licensing the service from a company called Alviere, which handles the banking bit and is an FDIC member. OmniMoney by Boost, as it’s formally branded, doesn’t require a credit score examine to open an account. There’s no minimal steadiness requirement, and no month-to-month charges so long as the account is energetic in a 12-month time interval.

That all sounds fairly beneficiant, however the charges creep in if you deposit cash to your account. One of Boost’s promoting factors for the brand new service is the flexibility to deposit money into your account at a Boost retail retailer, however there’s a $4 price each time you do. There’s additionally a $1 price each time you try a distant examine deposit. If you need to get money out of your account, there’s a $1.30 cost for utilizing an “in-network” ATM. Direct deposit — which most of the clients Boost is concentrating on are unlikely to have entry to — is free.

You don’t essentially have to be a Boost buyer to open an OmniMoney account, however the firm plans to supply “special discounts and perks” to those that are. One of these perks is the flexibility to ship free remittances to Mexico if you happen to’re on a premium limitless Boost plan. Otherwise, there’s a $3.50 price to ship cash to Mexico from an OmniMoney account (on prime of the $4 money deposit price). That’s about the identical charge that the Western Union website quotes me for sending $100 to Mexico if I deposit money in-store.

It’s clear how Boost hopes OmniMoney will enchantment to its present buyer base, however it’s much less clear what this all has to do with Dish’s larger plans for Project Genesis, its cutting-edge 5G service full with NFTs. Stokols alludes to choices sooner or later that enchantment to extra prosperous folks. Even although it’s Boost branded, he says it might “play into other parts of the business,” and confirmed that cryptocurrency would possibly determine into that future — Alviere offers crypto products, because it so occurs.

Before any of that occurs, Boost has to get OmniMoney up and working. It launches right now, however in-store money deposit companies are solely accessible in Texas, California, Maryland, Virginia, Arizona, Colorado, and Washington DC. Boost plans to take the service nationwide in early 2023.