Rapper Killer Mike and Bounce TV founder and President Ryan Glover have joined forces to launch Greenwood, a new digital bank tailored to the Black and Latinx communities.
Greenwood is a banking service that operates exclusively online, offering mobile deposits for checking and savings accounts, that seeks to support minority-owned businesses, CNN reports.
The company is branded as “modern banking for the culture” on its website.
The endeavor also provides peer-to-peer transfers, global ATMs and other financial services with a focus on Black and Latinx entrepreneurs. The Greenwood name is derived from the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, that a century ago was home to what was known as Black Wall Street.
Glover said that the bank was created to provide loans and financial aid for Black-owned businesses who have had difficulty with white-owned banks.
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“There were no digital banking solutions that cater to the African-American or Latinx communities until Greenwood,” Glover stated.
“In order to build wealth, you need bank capital,” Glover added. “We will identify qualified entrepreneurs, business owners and creatives to equip them with the capital needed to make their dreams a reality.”
In addition to partnering with Killer Mike, whose real name is Michael Render, Glover has created a leadership team at Greenwood that includes Andrew Young, a civil rights leader and former Atlanta mayor.
Render, himself an Atlanta business owner, stated that the financial system has been unfair for Black Americans and that’s what prompted the creation of Greenwood. The Grammy-winner also hopes that this venture will increase the chances of Black dollars staying in Black neighborhoods.
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“Today, a dollar circulates for 20 days in the white community, but only six hours in the Black community,” Render said.
The concept for Greenwood was created by Glover last year and is slated to officially launch in January 2021. Glover said the killings of George Floyd and the civil unrest throughout the nation since hastened his work on the bank.
Greenwood has attracted more than $3 million in seed money and amassed a growing waiting list of “tens of thousands” of people looking to make an account, Glover told CNN.
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