Joust announced the launch of its multi-feature financial app tailored to needs of freelancers, entrepreneurs and independent contractors.

The Joust app — developed in partnership with financial services toolkit Cambr — enables users to

  • Open a free, FDIC-insured deposit account backed by a community bank;
  • Open a merchant account to process credit and debit card payments for their products and services; and
  • Protect themselves from client late payment and non-payment with PayArmourTM, which guarantees invoices up to $5000.

The Joust app for iOS is available for free download at Apple App Store. The Android App is scheduled for release on February 1, 2019. In the spirit of freelancers building their careers and businesses on their own terms, Joust is inviting early adopters to test the service on their own terms as well: users can select how much they want to pay for a monthly subscription to the Joust platform.

A New Banking Paradigm for the Freelance Economy

The current banking system doesn’t work for the freelancer and gig economy because it wasn’t designed to. Freelancers and small businesses commonly experience behemoth traditional banks denying them loans, credit cards, payment processing and other services that they routinely provide to established businesses and salaried workers. Many New Economy workers — who constitute 35 percent of American workers, according to the Freelancer’s Union “2018 Freelancing in America” study — do not trust or want to be customers of the traditional banking industry with a record of redlining, signing customers up and then charging fees for unwanted services, and steering investment away from local communities.

With the freelance economy now one of the largest sectors of the U.S. workforce, it deserves a banking system that meets freelancers’ needs. The Joust banking platform directly addresses the inadequacies of the legacy banks by providing freelancers not only with crucial financial services via a chartered, FDIC-insured community bank, but also the innovative PayArmourTM invoice non-payment/late payment protection service.

“With Joust, we’re aiming to eliminate the pain points independent workers feel by creating an ethical banking system for freelancers and entrepreneurs,” said Lamine Zarrad, Joust co-founder and CEO. “We’ve brought together our freelancing, product design, and regulatory experience to tailor Joust to the needs and values of those workers historically shut out of the banking system.”

Powered by Cambr, the Banking Toolkit

Underlying the Joust platform is Cambr, a full-stack financial toolkit that enables Joust to offer its users free and FDIC-insured deposit accounts, along with a host of other services that together mean Joust users no longer need to rely on multiple providers of financial products and services to manage their businesses.

“Joust exemplifies how Cambr powers innovative financial products that strategically target the needs of entrepreneurs in this established, yet flourishing, sector of the economy,” said Joshua Siegel, CEO of StoneCastle. “With digital bill pay, account analytics, cash flow management tools and more, Joust brings freelancers into the financial system and helps them save time, reduce expenses and eliminate recurring finance hassles.”

Cambr seamlessly integrates what’s known as the StoneCastle Deposit Network — a deposit platform of more than 800 community banks across the country — with Q2 Open’s CorePro digital processing platform, and leverages strategic relationships with partner financial institutions like NBKC that serve as banks of record. Through Cambr, non-bank companies – like Joust – can offer fully custom banking products to their users at scale while distributing their deposits to FDIC-insured community banks nationwide.