| For Students, By Students: The Higher One Story |
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I'm Miles, one of the founders of Higher One. If you're reading this, it's because your college or university uses our services. As this may be your first experience with us, I'd like to share some background on how we started out, followed by details on the features and benefits of the OneAccount, a no minimum balance, no monthly fee, FDIC Insured checking account. I founded Higher One when I was a junior in college (which was early 2000 - not that long ago) with two other college friends, Sean Glass and Mark Volchek. Our main idea was to expand the purchasing power of our college ID card so it could be accepted everywhere - not just on campus. While this was a good idea, we weren't sure it would be enough to become a viable business. We needed to provide a benefit to school administrators in addition to the students. Looking at the refund process, we noticed how frustrating it was for students to wait in line for their money. In addition, the process of issuing checks was costly for the school. We decided to create a product based on combining a college ID card with a Debit MasterCard®; this would help students get their refunds from their school faster, offer more choices in how to receive their money and finally save time and money for colleges and universities.
Our company was built on a culture that values integrity, teamwork, creative problem solving, focus and open communication. To me, open communication also extends to customers. Some of the ways we practice this is by avoiding "banky" words; or if we must use them, doing our best to explain what they mean in simpler terms. We also post a link to the OneAccount fee schedule on every page of our banking site. (You don't find that very often!) And on that same page, we've explained in detail how the account can be used for free. Since Higher One was created by students, for students, we made sure to load the OneAccount with convenient features such as:
Thanks for taking the time to read this note. I've provided my contact information below and always welcome your comments or suggestions on how we can provide better services and features for students. Sincerely,
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Testimonials
EKU now realizes the importance of the card and our office and what an asset we can be. This has helped in gaining the understanding and importance of a good card system. Our roles have been improved and we are always looking to provide better services to our students. This was just the icing on the cake in helping further the card’s role with students.Eastern Kentucky University
Higher One affords an institution a complete, compliant, cost effective tool to manage the Financial Aid refund process. No more lines to pick up paper checks, no more lost checks in the mail and lessened demand for book loans at the beginning of the semester. Higher One offers the best of customer service tools—the customer selects how funds are to be delivered.University of Houston-Downtown
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