Skylight Financial^®, Inc., headquartered in Atlanta, GA is a leading provider of electronic banking solutions to corporations and individuals. Skylight^® utilizes its proven technology, operations, and marketing expertise to offer its Skylight account to more than 55 million self-banked individuals. Skylight focuses on this customer base to provide a banking relationship to those individuals who may not, for various reasons, have a traditional banking relationship.

Founded in 1998 as a response to the U.S. Treasury mandate that all Social Security and other Federal Benefit recipients receive their benefits by direct deposit, Skylight has become a viable option for many individuals to enter or re-enter the banking system. Skylight focuses on specific markets that historically have been underserved by the banking industry.

Skylight's target market consists of self-banked individuals as well as the companies that employ them. Generally, Skylight targets employers who have a high percentage and / or high number of low to moderate income, hourly employees. The self-banked population includes those who receive government benefits, payroll checks, and other types of payments, but currently have no banking relationship. Companies are seeking to move all employees to direct deposit as a means of providing additional employee benefits while reducing payroll costs and increasing employee productivity. It is estimated that 25% to 30% of the U.S. work force is self-banked. The percentage of the self-banked among immigrant workers is believed to be even higher.

Banks have not focused on this customer base due to increased costs and risks associated with them. It is very expensive to service customers via a branch teller, which is where this customer would go if they had a problem. Because this consumer could not qualify for credit cards, mortgages, and CDs, a bank has very little opportunity to turn this consumer into a profitable customer. Traditional banks charge $8 -$15 per month for a zero balance checking account. Additionally, many immigrant workers transfer funds each pay period to support relatives in their native country via check cashers, or other wire transfer companies, at a cost of up to $60 per transfer. Due to increased credit requirements and security measures at banks, the only alternative for many self-banked individuals is to utilize expensive check cashers. A typical check casher charges 2% - 5% to cash a payroll check. The Skylight account is a cost effective solution for self-banked individuals to obtain the safety and convenience of an FDIC insured bank account.

Skylight Financial has partnered with U.S. Bank^®, SunTrust^®, and Capital One^® to provide you with brighter financial solutions from our account-based "Bank account in a card^sm", to customized stored-value branded and unbranded applications. Skylight solutions are provided to corporate clients through the Commercial Banking division of any of our banking partners, to consumers through bank branches, and direct marketing.