KANSAS CITY, Mo. & BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--UMB Healthcare Services, a division of UMB Bank, n.a., and Bend Financial today announced a partnership to offer UMB custodial account, benefit card issuer and tier one customer support services on Bend Financial’s HSA platform, launching in Oct. 2018.
Bend Financial’s powerful consumer-centric platform, Bend HSA, dramatically evolves the consumer experience. It makes HSAs easy for everyone to understand and use, maximizes tax benefits and transforms the fragmented and dated user experience.
A new player in the HSA administration services space, Bend Financial is led by CEO Tom Torre, who has more than 20 years of financial services and consumer-directed healthcare experience. The executive team also includes Itamar Romanini, widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading experts in consumer-directed healthcare.
“We are excited about the strategic partnership with Bend Financial which brings together the strength and tenure of UMB Bank with the entrepreneurial spirit of the long-term industry innovators at Bend,” said Ben Morris, president of UMB Healthcare Services. “Our partnership will effectively enable Bend to deliver a leading-edge client experience by providing a reliable and streamlined consumer-centric portal that will consistently improve the consumer experience for accountholders.”
Bend HSA uses advanced technologies to help individual consumers optimize HSA tax benefits and health spending through their HSA account. The platform learns about individual situations and provides actionable advice. It offers accountholders a dashboard view of health care financial wellness with unmatched features such as contribution goals and a breakdown of how and when HSA funds are spent.
“UMB Healthcare Services is an ideal partner for Bend, with the experience and scale necessary to help bring this genuinely innovative platform to market,” says Torre. “We’re excited to be working with UMB to make HSAs easy for everyone to use.”
UMB Healthcare Services continues to be a leading financial custodian for the health care payments market and a steward for consumer-directed health care industry. Along with the newly formed partnership with Bend Financial, UMB continues to deliver health care payment solutions including HSAs and customized multipurpose benefit debit cards for insurance carriers, third-party administrators, software companies, employers and financial institutions.
About Bend Financial:
Bend Financial is a Boston-based technology and services company that provides health savings account and financial wellness solutions to individuals, employers and organizations in the group benefits distribution market. Its innovative approach and product offerings simplify the use of HSAs while making the product attractive to all types of health care consumers.
About UMB:
UMB Financial Corporation (Nasdaq: UMBF) is a financial services company headquartered in Kansas City, Mo. UMB offers personal banking, commercial banking, healthcare services and institutional banking, which includes services to mutual funds and alternative-investment entities and registered investment advisors. UMB operates banking and wealth management centers throughout Missouri, Illinois, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Arizona and Texas. For more information, visit UMB.com, UMB Financial.com, UMB Blog or follow us on Twitter at @UMBBank, UMB Facebook and UMB LinkedIn.
