Austin Capital Bank marries innovative technology with traditional banking products, giving customers the best of both worlds when it comes to managing their personal finances. The technology-enabled, community-driven bank has a variety of brands to help families build and protect their credit.

President Mark DeBiasio said Austin Capital Bank looks for innovative ways to offer products to customers that provide the specific solutions that they want and need.

One of the products the bank offers is Credit Strong, a product that was developed to benefit those who either have no credit and want to establish it, or those with poor credit wanting to improve it.

“Credit Strong combines both a loan and deposit account and allows a customer to establish or rehabilitate their credit,” DeBiasio said. “In the process, they improve their credit and also create a savings account for themselves. Credit Strong has been highly successful at solving the credit-building needs of hundreds of thousands of customers.”

One of the newest products Austin Capital Bank offers is FreeKick, which provides identity theft protection for families including up to two adult parents and six children from birth to age 25. The product was designed to protect families from the emerging risk of synthetic identity theft.

“Criminals specifically target the social security numbers of children to create fake ‘synthetic identities’ and use these identities to commit a host of frauds, ruining a child’s credit and identity before they even reach adulthood,” Debasio said.

DeBiasio said the primary reason this area of identity theft is growing so quickly is due to the Social Security Administration changing the way it issues social security numbers. In 2011, the Social Security Administration began issuing numbers in a randomized fashion.

“Most parents are unaware that all children under age 13 have a random social security number and criminals have targeted hospitals and schools to obtain the social security numbers of these minors to commit fraud,” DeBiasio said.

DeBiasio said it's very unlikely that the child or the parents of the child would have any reason to know that their identity has been stolen until that child reaches adulthood and apply for their first loan or credit card, or attempt to lease an apartment.

FreeKick doesn’t just protect children’s credit, it automatically establishes and builds it. Traditionally, parents who have wanted to help their children establish credit have added them as an authorized user to a credit card.

“Being an authorized user is one of the most misunderstood and largest myths of establishing credit,” Debasio said. “As an authorized user, children, or spouses, are ‘borrowing’ the credit history of the primary cardholder, not building their own. The moment an authorized user is removed from a card, all the card’s credit history is removed from their credit profile.”

FreeKick solves this problem by establishing and reporting a primary credit account in the child’s name using a 0% interest rate loan that is reported when they become an adult.

To access the benefits of FreeKick, customers open an interest-bearing deposit account online at FreeKick.bank and in return, Austin Capital Bank provides identity theft protection and credit building for the family.

For Austin locals, Austin Capital Bank has a branch location at 8100 Shoal Creek Blvd., Austin. The bank is also currently offering a special on certificate of deposits.

“With interest rates more or less at the peak, it’s a good time to lock in those rates now,” Debasio said.

The bank is currently offering promotional CD rates at various terms.

“We have very talented bankers and technologists all in one company,” DeBiasio said. “We believe that by marrying the two, we can deliver unparalleled value to our customers.”

Learn more about Austin Capital Bank and its variety of products and services on the website.

The above story was produced by Senior Multi Platform Journalist Summer El-Shahawy with Community Impact's Storytelling team with information solely provided by the local business as part of its "sponsored content" purchase through our advertising team.