UPDATE: It is with a heavy heart that I have to update this post/release. PerkStreet announced that they will no longer be in operation at the end of September 2013.
Listen to Episode 120 to hear the CEO share why the company is closing

 
Original post:
PerkStreet is a relatively new financial product that's doing everything right: It's a checking account with a debit card that allows you to earn rewards on things you already and the same zero-liability protection major credit cards have. I asked the founder and CEO of PerkStreet Financial to share all the great things that are happening at PerkStreet.com.
Interview with CEO Dan O'Malley

SOS: Who is Dan O'Malley?

Mr. O'Malley: I am a long-time financial services executive and an entrepreneur as well as a father and a husband. What I really care about as a person is being able to improve lives. I think at the end of the day it's what we all care about and that's why I started PerkStreet with the rest of our team. There is such an incredible opportunity right now in banking to change how people relate to their money. We're at a fulcrum point right now and we got started with PerkStreet because we thought we could change the industry, change lives, and build a great company at the same time and it's been a lot of fun.

SOS: How long has PerkStreet been around?

Mr. O'Malley: We founded the company in 2008 and formally launched the business in 2009-2010. For the past 2 years we've been growing very quickly.

SOS: What is PerkStreet and what makes it different from other banks?

Mr. O'Malley: Our checking accounts are what we call "Personal Profit Engines". We let our customers earn an incredible amount of cash back by banking the way they were already going to bank and buying what they were already going to buy. How it works is you earn cash back for buying things with our debit card, for setting savings goals, for automating finances, for doing things that are smart. You don't earn cash back for things that will get you into trouble and into debt which is typically what a bank wants you to do. That's what makes us different. We let Americans earn cash and improve their financial lives without ever having to worry about getting in to financial trouble. It's liberating, it's exciting, and it's exactly what the industry needs right now.

SOS: PerkStreet is like using your local bank but has ATMs all over the nation instead of physical banks, is that correct?

Mr. O'Malley: That's right. How we are able to give people such an incredible amount of cash back is by not building branches. Think about it, when was the last time you had to physically walk into a branch - there is no need for it any more. What we do is very similar to how Amazon has changed the way people buy books and music among other things. When you get rid of the branches and locations you can give people an incredible deal. So we have built the best direct checking account in the world.

SOS: How does PerkStreet make money?

Mr. O'Malley: The ways we make money are the same ways your typical bank is going to make money. Whenever you use our debit card to make a transaction, we make money from that. We get paid a portion of the transaction from the merchant for facilitating the payment. We also make money off holding your money for you and selling other services like wire transfers or selling books of checks and things like that.

SOS: Can you share a success story of how PerkStreet has helped one of your customers?

Mr. O'Malley: Yes. We ran a promotion once to have people tell us how PerkStreet has made a difference in their lives. The videos and pictures and emails that people sent us within the first 10 hours of launching it were amazing. One is the story of a family that had a tremendous amount of credit card debt. They were really struggling to get out from underneath it and they were trying to work through how they were going to build some momentum behind paying it off.