Des Moines CEO wants to make responsible spending cool

What do Justin Bieber and a Des Moines executive have in common? The answer is BillMyParents, a San Diego-based startup that aims to help teens and their parents come to grips with financial independence. Of course, Bieber and chairman and CEO Mike McCoy (left) have very different roles with the company. Bieber acts as a…

Parents receive a text when their child uses a BillMyParents’ SpendSmart card.

What do Justin Bieber and a Des Moines executive have in common? The answer is BillMyParents, a San Diego-based startup that aims to help teens and their parents come to grips with financial independence.

Of course, Bieber and chairman and CEO Mike McCoy (left) have very different roles with the company. Bieber acts as a brand ambassador for BillMyParents’ SpendSmart card, while McCoy manages the company’s business and strategic direction.

But how did the former president of Wells Fargo Consumer Credit Cards end up as CEO of a San Diego-based payments company? In a recent phone interview, McCoy said BillMyParents provided an answer to a question he had been asking for a while. During his years working for Wells Fargo, he had an up close view of consumers and the economy in a recession, and he wondered what more could be done to help.

“During that time we saw lots of people get in trouble, get in over their heads in terms of consumer debt,” he said. While for some people debt resulted from layoffs or other unpredictable circumstances, in many cases poor spending habits contributed to the problems.

“I remember thinking to myself, ‘there’s got to be a better way,’ and feeling very frustrated not knowing then what that was,” McCoy said.

When BillMyParents came knocking, McCoy was introduced to the SpendSmart card and said to himself, “This is it.” He became chairman and CEO in October 2011.

The SpendSmart card is a prepaid MasterCard designed to help teens and young adults learn responsible spending habits. Parents sign up their kids for the card and have the power to automatically reload money onto it, track purchases and lock and unlock the card.

For instance, when a teen makes a purchase with the card, both the teen and the parent receive a text alert with the amount of the purchase (right), where the purchase was made and the remaining card balance. The card won’t work in places teens shouldn’t frequent, such as liquor stores and casinos. And if the teen loses the card or acts irresponsibly, the parent can turn it off with a text.

McCoy and BillMyParents believe use of the card can lead to teachable moments, where parents and teens discuss spending together. “We want to change the way America talks about money one family at a time,” he said.

His own three teenagers all use the SpendSmart card, and he said they like the text alert feature as much as he does. In fact, on several occasions his kids have noticed via the alert that they were overcharged for a purchase when they checked out at the cashier. It’s just another way of monitoring their money.

Though he heads a company based in San Diego, McCoy chose to stick around Iowa, calling the Greater Des Moines area “a great place to recruit from and recruit to.” He’s since opened an operations center in Clive. “Today, we have about four people in our Clive office, but it’s an area we anticipate growing as appropriate over time,” he said. About 15 employees work in the company’s San Diego office.

Last month, BillMyParents announced it raised nearly $5 million to accelerate its product development and growth. The new funding, McCoy said in a company press release, “shows that investors are confident in (BillMyParents’) ability to execute on a significant market opportunity in the teen payment solutions space.” It won’t, however, immediately add positions in the Des Moines office, McCoy told Silicon Prairie News today.

So where does Justin Bieber come in?

“We think there’s a way that he could help us make responsible spending cool,” McCoy said.

In November the company added Bieber as a brand ambassador. He will work with BillMyParents to create videos aimed at teaching teens responsible spending, and he’ll also spread the word via social media.

 

Note: Danny Schreiber contributed to this story. 

Credits: Screenshot and text image from billmyparents.com. Mike McCoy photo courtesy of BillMyParents.

This story is part of the AIM Archive

This story is part of the AIM Institute Archive on Silicon Prairie News. AIM gifted SPN to the Nebraska Journalism Trust in January 2023. Learn more about SPN’s origin »

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