Varo Bank recently made history by becoming the first 100% digital, mobile-first, national bank, providing digital banking services to 180 million Americans currently underserved by the traditional banking system. CEO and Co-Founder Colin Walsh approached NameGirl pre-launch to create a name for this disruptive start-up on a mission to bring financial inclusion and opportunity to all. Using AI, Varo has built a next-gen consumer banking experience that truly serves its consumers’ needs.
THE CHALLENGE
- Extremely crowded fintech space with both established, traditional banks and new fintech apps
- Name available in Apple and Android App store and trademark
- B2C Domain that was intuitive and easy
- Help disruptive start-up differentiate from traditional banks but retain trustworthiness, not too quirky
SKILLS
- Brand Naming
- Millennial market
- AI/Tech Naming
- App Store Naming & Clearance in both Apple and Android
- Preliminary TM screening
- Exact Match Domains (EMD)
- Rush Service
The name Varo embodies the user experience of this AI-powered, digital bank – frictionless, adaptive, agile and powerful. At the same time, Varo is friendly and approachable; their slogan is A bank for all of us.
Inspiration
Varo comes from the root of the word levare, to lift or elevate, in Latin which fits perfectly with their mission to elevate and lift up underserved consumers and improve their financial life, build credit and more. “We want to help people climb up a very broken credit ladder,” says Colin.
Definition
Inspired by the Latin root to lift, elevate, levare. In Mexico: money. In Italian: launch.
Association
Future-forward, sleek, frictionless, fluid, agile, powerful. Sounds like arrow. Friendly, approachable.
While definitions are important, the emotional association of a name will always be most powerful to the consumer
“We approached NameGirl to find a name for our new AI mobile banking company. Kimberly jumped right in and immersed herself in researching our market and company concept. She quickly turned around a highly creative and strategically targeted set of names, of which Varo was the perfect fit for our vision and customer segment. I highly recommend Kimberly. She’s got the smarts and creativity to get it right!”