Vantik and Mastercard facilitate retirement provision with a new debit card

The topic of old-age provision is one of the most pressing challenges in Germany and Europe. In order to give people easy access to saving for their retirement, the Berlin fintech Vantik has entered into a cooperation with Mastercard.

The core of the cooperation is the combination of a free Debit Mastercard with long-term savings: Vantikcard users receive 1 percent cashback with every payment, which is automatically invested in a sustainable portfolio. The offer, which will be available from April, integrates old-age provision into everyday life and deliberately avoids the bureaucracy and complexity of traditional offers.

The insight that the statutory pension is no longer sufficient and that more private old-age security has to be undertaken is increasingly gaining ground: 26.4 million Germans over the age of 14 gave 2020 according to a study by the Allensbacher Markt- und Werbeträgeranalyse (AWA) admit that they consider their past retirement efforts insufficient – almost two million more than four years earlier.

At the same time, according to the European statistical office Eurostat, the number of people at risk of old-age poverty in Germany has risen sharply in recent years – to 3.1 million people over 65 years of age. These developments can increasingly also be observed in other countries.

“Despite the awareness that they absolutely have to do more for retirement provision in their private lives, people are not yet taking action,” says Til Klein, founder of Vantik. “State programs like the Riester pension are far too complex, too bureaucratic and too inflexible for today’s requirements,” adds Klein.

Up until now, the pension market lacked an innovative approach to motivating people to save in a simple and flexible way. “With the introduction of the Vantikcard, we are making it easy to get started with old-age provision and also show that old-age provision also works without an instruction manual,” says the Vantik founder.

Peter Bakenecker, Divisional President for Germany and Switzerland at Mastercard, adds: “We are proud to support Vantik in the development and rollout of the Vantikcard. We share the vision that the start of retirement provision should be as uncomplicated and smooth as a payment process, and with Vantik and the Debit Mastercard we are pleased to offer a solution to such an important social challenge. “

The Debit Mastercard combines the cost control of a classic bank card by direct debiting from the account with the ability to make online payments and be accepted by more than 70 million merchants worldwide. The card can be linked to any desired account via a bank connection. The Vantikcard also supports ApplePay and GooglePay.