Jiko, a banking technology provider that uses customer deposits to buy short-term treasury bills, is partnering with tech platform Euphoria on the company’s launch of a transgender-focused banking app called Bliss.

Why should we care?
The upcoming launch of the Bliss banking app marks a move from a direct-to-consumer to a business-to-business strategy on the part of Jiko by offering its technology to help other companies launch bespoke financial products. Jiko’s technology is built on top of a toolset that holds customer funds in government-backed treasury bills. It lets users spend these funds in real time via debit transactions. Jiko’s pivot toward a business-to-business trajectory is timely as it rides a wave of interest in “banking-as-a-service” offerings. For Euphoria, Jiko’s tech will help it launch a banking app for transgendered consumers, a group that has had challenges with traditional financial services in the past. Of the millions of people in the U.S. who identify as transgender, more than 30% lack identification to match their gender. This can create roadblocks for them when onboarding to a bank account, because bank compliance processes typically have not addressed this situation. Jiko says it’s working with Euphoria to tailor the “know your customer” processes to to suit transgender consumers’ needs.