Colin Walsh is the founder and CEO of Varo Bank, the first consumer fintech to be granted a bank charter in US history. Colin founded Varo with a specific vision: to create a bank that works for everyone striving to build a better future – from those with abundance to people struggling to make ends meet.He has led the team responsible for building the bank from the ground up to meet the specific needs of how people bank today. Varo was named one of Fast Company’s MostInnovative Companies, ranked No. 7 on the Inc 5000 list of fastest growing companies for2021, and was named by Forbes as one of the World’s Best Banks in 2022.
Varo is an FDIC-insured digital bank with a national bank charter which it acquired in 2020, making it the first-ever nationally chartered all-digital U.S. consumer bank. The firm offers a full suite of banking services including checking and savings accounts, loans, debit and credit cards, budgeting tools like alerts, spending insights, and savings goals, designed to help customers manage their finances. Varo’s mission has been to provide an alternative to incumbent consumer banks which it thinks have an economic model and incentives that are misaligned with their customers. It focuses on serving consumers at a lower cost enabling essential services like fast and inexpensive payments, helping people build credit and get access to credit, and give consumers access to things that create a real sense of ownership.