Robinhood Debuts New Service to Deliver Cash to Your House, Because That Seems Good, Right?

Robinhood, the online financial services company, has rolled out a number of new perks for its elite members. Among them is one particular program that might give the cautious consumer pause: a delivery service that will bring wads of cash straight to your house.

“Introducing cash delivery,” the company’s website says. “Your cash is delivered on-demand right to your doorstep. No need to search for an ATM.”

The cash program is part of the company’s new push into banking and other financial services, which was announced this week during a special event in San Francisco. It will be available for Robinhood Gold members. Other newly announced services include professional tax advice, estate planning, and 4 percent savings APY. Despite the alleged banking services offered, the site includes a small, important disclosure, in fine print: “Robinhood is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by Coastal Community Bank, member FDIC.”

According to its website, Coastal Community Bank opened in 1997 and is based in Everett, Washington. It offers a variety of financial services and planning. The bank also recently partnered with Dave, a fintech company based in Los Angeles, to expand a service that Dave offers called “ExtraCash,” which allows users to gain access to “$500 in five minutes or less.”

There is little in the way of detailed information about Robinhood’s cash delivery program on the company’s website, so, for the time being, you’ll have to sorta use your imagination to visualize how it will work. A note at the bottom of the webpage states: “Cash delivery service coverage varies based on geographic location.” Presumably neighborhoods with high crime rates will not be the preferred terrain for delivery.

If “Uber for cash” sounds theoretically sorta cool, it also seems like a potential nightmare. Heat, anyone?

When reached for comment by Gizmodo, a Robinhood spokesperson sought to reassure us, explaining the following: “Cash delivery will involve a mix of our own internal logistics, third party security vendors, and last mile delivery partners. Safety and security is a top priority for us and we’ll have more to share when Robinhood Banking launches later this year.” The spokesperson also seemed to intimate that ATM transactions could potentially be more dangerous, pointing to a drastic uptick in ATM-related crime that took place several years ago.

Robinhood Chairman and CEO Vlad Tenev recently addressed the novelty of the service during an interview with Yahoo! Finance: “Customers are already used to doing on-demand delivery for things like iPhones and iPads, we anticipate the average ticket size for a cash delivery transaction to likely be in the low hundreds of dollars, so even though it seems like an unfamiliar thing, people are doing very, very similar things with much larger amounts, and having them delivered,” he said, while also contrasting it with “going to an ATM which is in particular not the safest or most pleasant experience.”

Robinhood Banking is expected to launch its host of new services this fall, so you won’t be able to sign-up for the company’s cash delivery service until then. In the meantime, maybe just think for a spell on whether you want this sort of service or not.