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Challenger Bank Cheese Teams With Asian-Owned Restaurants and Businesses For AAPI Heritage Month
[May 13, 2021]

Challenger Bank Cheese Teams With Asian-Owned Restaurants and Businesses For AAPI Heritage Month


Recently launched Cheese, a revolutionary digital banking and social cause platform, today announced a special initiative as part of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage month to help local businesses recover from the effects of the pandemic.

Using either their physical or virtual debit cards, Cheese users already get up to 10% cash-back at over 10,000 retailers or restaurants, including many Asian-owned businesses and restaurants. Cheese has identified and teamed up with additional independent Asian-owned businesses and restaurants in American cities that need added orders and foot traffic, offering five percent cash back to customers who support those businesses. The cities include Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Seattle, and Chicago.

"This time during COVID has been especially hard on Asian businesses and restaurants. They've been battling a double crisis between racially motivated attacks plus the overall drop in activity that so many American businesses have experienced. We want to urge our customers to help them by going out and supporting local Asian-owned restaurants with their purchases. With the five percent cash back, they're able to do this and earn a little for themselves as well," said Ken Lian, CEO and co-founder of Cheese.

Kai Lin of Joy Kitchen based in Arcadia, California has already been forced to close two of three restaurants he has operated for three years Thanks to the partnership with Cheese, he has seen an uptick in customer traffic.



"You can't miss that yellow card. It makes me smile when I see customers pull it out at the register. I need all the support I can get right now," said Kai Lin, Owner, Joy Kitchen.

While Cheese serves Asian-Americans and immigrants, they are also open to all prospective customers in the U.S., providing accessible, rewards-based banking while simultaneously giving them a seamless way to support Asian-American and immigrant-owned businesses, at-risk communities, and charitable organizations in the app. The newly added five percent cash back partnerships add to Cheese's existing give back efforts. Customers have the option of donating any amount of their rewards or donating their sign-up bonus to the fund.


Cheese accounts are open to all U.S. citizens age 18 and over and are available to anyone, including individuals without a credit history. Features of the Cheese card include advance pay up to two days early with direct deposit, a 3% deposit bonus for referring friends and 0.3% Annual Percentage Yield (APY). The Cheese Debit Mastercard provides advanced security features with Mastercard's Zero Liability and Identity Theft protection while the platform provides multi-factor authentication and 256-bit encryption bank-level security.

To learn more about Cheese or to sign up for an account, visit earncheese.com.

About Cheese

Our mission is to empower people with financial freedom and to provide a platform to affect real improvement in their communities. The company offers competitive banking solutions with cashback, deposit bonuses, and zero fees. In the app, Cheese uses industry-standard security, encryption, and authentication practices to safeguard your data and personal information. Cheese accounts are FDIC-insured up to $250,000 per depositor through Coastal Community Bank, Member FDIC. Banking services provided by Coastal Community Bank, Member FDIC. The Cheese debit card is issued by Coastal Community Bank, member FDIC, pursuant to license by Mastercard International."


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