Mercury, a fintech for startups, has launched a personal banking service aimed at simplifying and optimizing its clients' banking needs, the company said Wednesday.

Mercury Personal is designed for founders and investors based on the requests the San Francisco-based company received since introducing its product for businesses. The neobank was founded in 2017.

“By offering personal banking for founders and investors, we’re able to deepen our relationship with them. Mercury Personal is a strategic move toward helping people and businesses operate at their best,” CEO Immad Akhund said in a statement. “This is our next step in building a generational company that innovates, supports, and grows alongside the most ambitious companies and individuals.”

The product intends to connect banking tasks across different platforms and help clients give access to those in their inner circle by customizing permissions for each use and issuing multiple debit cards (for family members or assistants), with tailored spending limits for each user. Customers have access to unlimited wire and automated clearing house transfers, worldwide ATM fee reimbursements, up to $5 million in FDIC insurance through Mercury's partner bank and its sweep network and the ability to quickly switch between Mercury business and personal accounts, the company said.

A Mercury Personal annual subscription costs $240. 

“An annual transparent subscription fee ensures that we can offer a competitive yield and other perks to our customers, and ensures that we’re building a sustainable product that we can continue to invest in,” a spokesperson told Banking Dive via email.

Alexey Likuev, Mercury’s head of personal banking, noted that many founders and investors are dissatisfied with their personal bank accounts and need to navigate between various platforms to access different services. He joined Mercury in January 2023 and has been working on the product for more than a year, according to the person. 

“There is a paradox in today’s banking landscape: most neobanks focus on a pretty basic offering aimed at lower-income individuals and the underbanked. On the other side of the spectrum, traditional banks offer private banking and wealth management services that involve regularly talking to a banker, even if it involves basic tasks like sending a wire,” Likuev said in a statement Wednesday. 

The launch comes at a crucial time for the company. Mercury’s partner bank for the personal banking product, Choice Financial Group, has faced scrutiny for offering banking services to the fintech. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., after a thorough review of Choice, was concerned that the bank “had opened Mercury accounts in legally risky countries” and handled wire transfers between Saudi Arabian businesses, The Information reported last month.

Recently, several banks have entered into consent orders with the FDIC for alleged deficiencies in the lenders’ banking-as-a-service work and partnerships with fintechs. The latest banks to face the heat are Mode Eleven Bancorp, Piermont Bank, Sutton Bank and Lineage Bank – all have been asked to either offload or review their fintech partnerships.

Earlier this year, Mercury notified users who have debit cards issued by Evolve Trust & Bank that those cards would be invalid in 41 countries.

Last year, the neobank pursued arbitration against its former business partner and banking-as-a-service platform Synapse for $30 million, saying Synapse failed to pay according to the companies’ contracts. Synapse, on the other hand, claimed it had been in “financial freefall” and laid off nearly half its staff in October with millions of dollars in debt.

Mercury started beta testing the personal banking product in December with about 100 customers. A waitlist for interested customers opened Wednesday, and general availability for U.S. customers will roll out in the future, according to the company.

“Consumer banking brings an additional set of compliance and regulatory requirements that we take very seriously and we’re working closely with our partner bank to ensure we do it right before we ramp up and scale,” the spokesperson said.