Acorns partners with Cricket Wireless to incentivize saving and investing

Popular investing, savings and personal finance app Acorns is partnering with Cricket Wireless in a bid to encourage customers to save while paying their phone bills.

Why should we care?
Cricket customers who sign up for a new Acorns account and invest $5 receive a $10 investment bonus in their Acorns Invest account, while Acorns customers who switch to Cricket Wireless will receive a $20 investment bonus. Meanwhile, Cricket says it will invest $1 into customers’ Acorns accounts for every month their wireless service is paid. The tie-up between Cricket and Acorns is a customer-acquisition play for both companies, since they can feed off the reach of the other company’s customer numbers. Cricket has more than 10 million subscribers, while Acorns has 4 million customers. “This micro-investment tool empowers people to invest little by little, even just spare change, and it really adds up to impact their future,” said John Dwyer, president of the AT&T Prepaid Portfolio, which includes Cricket Wireless. Acorns is in the process of going public through a merger with special-purpose acquisition company Pioneer Merger Corporation in a $2.2B deal. The Acorns-Cricket tie-up isn’t the first time a fintech company and a telecom company have partnered. Two years ago, T-Mobile and BankMobile partnered to launch T-Mobile MONEY, and earlier this year Verizon partnered with Metropolitan Commercial Bank on a Gen Z-focused banking app that allows parents to monitor their children’s spending and saving.