College-Savings Firms Adopt Cash-Back Loyalty Programs

Many Are Expanding Their Network of 529 Savings Partners

November 30, 2009

Two college-savings companies are borrowing a page from the consumer cash-back loyalty playbook, offering customers rebates on services including refinancing mortgages or opening online bank accounts. Futuretrust, a unit of Destination Maternity Corp., and Upromise Investments have partnered with a series of other financial services companies to offer rebates that can be swept into section 529 college-savings plans. Futuretrust has teamed up with Citigroup and Wells Fargo's Wachovia Bank to introduce a program where customers get 25 basis points of the amount that they refinance or originate in a mortgage deposited in a 529 plan, said Adam Bashe, a managing director at the company. It also has partnered with Waterfield Bank, an Irvine, Calif., online banking company, to deposit 1% annually of a customer's average daily balance in a 529 plan.

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