The Daily Signal - Americans Can Now Own a Piece of a Conservative Credit Card Company

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

America’s major credit card companies donate millions of dollars to leftist causes every year. Rob Collins says he saw that conservative were tired of supporting woke corporations, but wanted “something more than outrage and boycotts,” so in 2022, Coign was born. Coign is the first Visa credit card created by and for conservatives. With steady growth in its first three years from a value of $25 million to $105 million, Coign is now giving its customers the opportunity to own a part of the company for as little as a $500 investment. “If you're interested in the conservative economy, and you're interested in what I call the parallel economy, and you're looking for a good company ... it's an opportunity to grow something,” Collins says. Collins joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain how Americans can invest in the credit card company, to discuss the conservative organizations the company has donated to, and how Coign is providing aid to those hard hit by Hurricane Helene. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, October 8th. I'm Virginia Allen. Americans are frustrated, especially conservative Americans, by the fact that major credit card companies give millions to leftist organizations every year. That's why Rob Collins in 2022 founded the conservative credit card company Coin. They have a mission to back conservative organizations. And they have just launched a brand new initiative after, three years of successful business that allows Americans, their credit card users, to actually invest in and own a portion of the company with as little as a $500 investment. While Rob Collins joins us on the show today to explain the initiative,

as well as some of the unique opportunities that they have taken to serve conservative organizations and even to respond to the disaster after Hurricane Helene devastated North Carolina. Stay tuned for my conversation with Rob Collins after this. Hey, it's Rob Bluey from The Daily Signal. Want to stay ahead of the curve on conservative news and analysis? Subscribe to our free Daily Signal email newsletters. You'll get the latest headlines, detailed policy coverage, and exclusive interviews delivered straight to your inbox.

Whether you're interested in our morning update, breaking news alerts, or weekly roundups, we've got you covered. Don't let the liberal media control the narrative. Sign up now at DailySignal.com email and join thousands of informed conservatives who rely on the daily signal to cut through the noise and get the truth. Well, I'm so pleased to welcome to the show. Rob Collins, he serves as the CEO of Coin. This is a conservative Visa credit card company. And Rob, you joined the show back in February, I believe it was. Talked a little bit about the history, the mission. Remind us,

what is it that really separates Coin as a credit card company from others? Coin was based on a an idea that, you know, I helped elect a lot of people, Republicans to office, and I saw the influence an election can have. But I became increasingly shocked at how political corporations were becoming. And where a politician may have a dollar in their campaign, corporations have hundreds of dollars. And so I started to do some research, and I found that corporations give billions of dollars to charity.

And 100% of those contributions were to left-leaning, or neutral, but left-leaning causes. And I just started to think, how can I have a greater impact than electing people? And so I started to study the marketplace, started asking questions to conservatives. And what they said was, I want a product that's easy to use, is safe, and is authentically conservative. So did a bunch of market research built a credit card company. It's a Visa credit card. It offers unlimited cash back to customers. We have customers in every state.

You can use it anywhere visa is accepted. I was in Borneo, Italy, which is called the top of the world in Italy, and I was buying coffee with my wife, and the card worked. And it's becoming a national movement. We've tripled our customer base this year alone, and it's really an opportunity for conservatives to take our commerce and put it through one platform so that we know the money is going to the right place. And what we do for our customers is every time they swipe at no cost to them, we put a sliver of the transaction aside for charity. And then once a quarter, we put four charities up and our customers vote. And the winning charity gets their vote percentage. So if you get 40% of the vote and win, you get 40% of the charity bucket.

And the other three charities split the rest. And it's been great. Last year alone, we gave more money to conservative charities than the top five credit card companies combined. I missed a word. We gave more money to conservative charities than the top five credit card companies combined. And this year's bigger. I mean, we'll give away this quarter more to charities than we gave away all last year. Wow.

What are these charities? Give us some of these names. Well, Heritage was a charity. We were so proud to have that partnership, and you were fantastic. And Heritage was an amazing partner. This quarter, and the votes going on this week, it's a hunt of a lifetime. It's like Make a Wish, but Make a Wish. It won't let you hunt as a project.

It's Turning Points USA. It's a Tim Tebow Foundation and the Job Creators Alliance, which all three do totally different things, but they're all investing in America to advance conservative values and build infrastructure that allows conservatives to not only kind of have a place to go to express their charitable dollars, but also to advocate for us. These corporations give billions to causes and universities, and those universities pump out good little liberals that go into corporate America. And it's this like iron triangle of liberal philanthropy and ideology and brainwashing that we're just trying to interrupt that phase. Yeah. And right now, coin customers have spent $148 million to the coin card,

and we're just getting started. So imagine we add a few zeros to that number. And we can call up the Disney's and the Budwisers and name, fill in the blank company and say, our customers are spending real dollars with your company, and we'd like you to stop this nonsense. Do they think that they would listen to conservatives? I guess money speaks loudly. Well, you know, these weak CEOs always cave to public pressure. But what we learned from Disney is when you actually create share price pressure, when you actually impact how they make money

like Governor DeSantis did, all of a sudden CEOs get fired, all of a sudden boards start to get replaced, all of a sudden the hedge funds start to say we could do a better job. So I think it'll create a culture of, you know, either stay out of the cultural wars or we need to treat half of our customers

with a lot more respect. Yeah. And that's what coin can do. From those big credit card companies, Chase, City, American Express, Capital One, And you mentioned they are giving so much money to far left causes. What do we know about where that money really is going? What are we talking about when we say they give millions of dollars to far left causes?

I mean, you name it. Clinton Foundation, Code Pink, Black Lives Matter, Larassa, Planned Parenthood, Acorn. It's all publicly disclosed. As public companies, they disclose their charitable contributions. They're quite proud of them, by the way. And you can find it all online. And so as a part of my research and to try to understand the marketplace, just like when I used to do campaigns, we built opposition research and we figured out like what is happening here. And what we found was billions of dollars have been committed by corporations, big brand names that you're used to, big banks, the credit card, probably in all of our listeners' wallets, have committed billions of dollars to leftist causes that would make the customers who listen to this podcast gag, terrible charities.

Wow. So you all, you started in 2022 shortly after COVID. I know COVID played a role in kind of waking up to the craziness of what was happening. Talk a little bit about this brand new campaign that you all have just launched. It's a really exciting opportunity. So, yes, we're two and a half years old. We've raised $42 million. And the folks who've invested have been so generous.

But we wanted to democratize the process, make it more grassroots. So we went to republic.com. It's like a Kickstarter kind of crowdfunding platform. So anyone in America can invest. You don't have to be an accredited investor. You can give as little as 500, as much as $124,000. It's republic.com forward slash coin. And what you can do is learn about the company.

You can learn about our unbelievable success, our low customer acquisition cost. You know, we have high quality customers. They're super prime is what they're called. They have the highest income, the highest credit. and the big credit card company spent over $1,200 to get people to sign up per card. We're getting it for less than 100 because we go on Bongino and Glenn Beck and, you know, Fox and say, there's an alternative that works just as great as your current credit card, but it supports conservative causes. So you can learn about our company and you can learn about our journey and learn why we're doing this and you can invest.

And that's what, you know, I think is so great. My former boss, Eric Cantor actually passed the legislation in 2012 that allowed for this to happen. So it's really exciting. And the amazing thing about it is, you know, it allows us right now, you know, our initial goal was $50,000. Our end goal is $2.5 million. We were $300,000 before it even became public just from our customers. And if you look at the comments, just love this, love this. I'm investing because I love this company.

They do a great job. And so it's real, you know, as a CEO, it gratifies you that you're doing a good job, A, but also to have that kind of support. So now we're talking to everybody, went public this morning, and it was a lot of, We're just trying to get the word out that if you're interested in the conservative economy, if you're interested in what they call the parallel economy, and you're looking for a good company, we're not looking for charity. This isn't an investment or your C3 kind of charitable contribution.

It's an investment in a great company, and it's an opportunity to grow something together. So we'd love to have hundreds, thousands of investors who really represent America. You know, we only bank with Midwest banks. You know, the coastal banks didn't one touch us, as you can imagine. And so this has always been a grassy. It's always been kind of a, you know, the silent majority of building this thing. And that's how we get there. What's the return that you hope will come back to your investors?

It's all on the website. I don't want to speak. But, you know, the return is, obviously, we want them to make money. And my hope is we see multiples on that. You put a dollar in and not a commitment, but you get 10, 20, even more than that. But also the feeling that you're investing in a company that is going to grow with you, that you're making a difference. You know, there's a lot of slogans right now about making America great again. And we can do it through Washington, but we also need to change the corporate culture.

And coin is the first and I think the biggest and most serious effort to say, how can we take the trillions of dollars of conservative commerce that flow through credit cards every year and just start to put them in one platform? So not only can we have a great, you know, customers can buy what they need with great customer service. We can build conservative infrastructure, but also we can start to say to corporate America, hey, 70 million Americans voted for Donald Trump in 2020, and they're being disrespected by your aggressive, not passive, but aggressive moves to move this country left with your corporate dollars. Let's talk a little bit about the card itself, because like any good American, I love credit card points and getting those rewards back.

What is the coin card offer? The coin card offers all the visa protections, all the safety and security. We built our own app. 92% of our customers pay through the app, so it's a really convenient platform. You're talking rewards. What do I get? We offer unlimited cashback rewards, just like every other credit card. You know, we're a startup, so the hotels and airlines, we're a little small for them.

And probably a little to the right of where they want to be. Sure. But someday, we're going to be big enough that we're going to have, you know, we're going to pursue all those things, hotels and everything. We just got upgraded. You know, there's four levels in the visa world. We started as a startup, which was fair at the bottom, and we just got upgraded, and it allows at no cost to our customers more access to the visa conciergeurs, the hotels, golf courses. I'm not a golfer, but I understand it's a big deal, the visa golf services. And so, you know, we're making progress. And, you know, like I said, at no cost to our customers, last month,

They got a whole bunch of more benefits. So we're, you know, we're an acorn, but we're growing. I love it. In the next several years, five, ten years, do you all see rolling out like multiple tiered cards like some companies have? Yes. Right now, we can't accept every person who applies. Sure.

So we'd like to have a product for every customer, depending upon where they are in their financial journey. You know, young, building their credit, older, secure credit. You know, we want to have something for everybody. We'd love to have a premium card. and we're having those preliminary discussions. We'd love to have a money market CD product where conservatives can still FDIC insured, get top interest rates, you know, but have it knowing that they're putting their money

and getting the same return they would get, but it's with a conservative company. And then I think long range, we'd love to have a small, medium business card, where we can offer conservative businesses or businesses that are candidly being pushed out of mainstream finance, gun manufacturers, energy producers, Christian groups, And now, if you read last week, Morgan Stanley and all the big banks are being pressured by the left to stop funding dairy and beef investments, which is, you know, hello. So when the left can't get things done through the ballot box or through Congress, they start to use corporate pressure campaigns, DEI and like I said, these. So there's a lot of opportunity for us to offer financial products to companies that are being marginalized by, you know, large banks and institutions. Yeah. How many users do you all have right now? We just crossed over 20,000. Wow. And it sounds small when you think of campaigns, but in the credit card world, it's huge. And we're marching towards our goals and getting there a little faster than we even thought. So it's been exciting. And cheaper. It's been a lot cheaper than plans.

Hey, that's not usually the story that people tell. I know. I know. What for you has been maybe one of the greatest surprises? Or chances or challenges? Because this is an intense industry to get into. It's very competitive, entering that world of finance and banking and credit cards. What have been some of those roadblocks that you all have hit and maybe some of the joys along the way? You're right. It's heavily regulated.

It's highly competitive. And people have affinities to their card. I love, oh, I, you know, there's a reason why they print when you became a member on the front of the card because they want you to build almost an emotional connection to them. But so the hardest thing has been, hey, we have this idea. We're going to go to the largest, wealthiest, safest, population in the credit card market and offer them a great product. Would you want to work with us? And they're like, you know, the bankers are like, oh, my idea is absolutely.

Let's do this. And the audience is conservatives. And they just kind of pull back and say. So that's been the hardest part is, like I said, we work in the Midwest because, you know, those bankers, they're comfortable with our people. but also they just want to make money, which is their job, to their shareholders

and to their employees. And we're a great option. And then the joys have candidly begin and end with the customers. There's this great tape of one of our customers calling, we have 100% U.S.-based customer service. And one of our agents in Kentucky

was talking to a woman. She solved her problem. And the woman said, could I pray with you? And for like a minute, she stopped, and the customer service woman was like, absolutely.

And they just prayed together. She's like, I'm praying for you. I'm praying for calling. I love what you're doing. People call us. They call us with charity ideas. They call us and say, here's how you can make the card better.

But they also just call us say thank you. Like, you know, you can't always be in, you know, the Reagan library, buying everything, you know, you feel good is going to a cause you like. And so when you're at, you know,

a place where, you know, it's lefty or someone with a t-shirt or a slogan is selling you something, they say, like, I love the idea that I'm using my coin card. And I'm kind of fighting back because I know this person is not on board with me.

And not only they're not on board, which is fine, but they're actually aggressively attacking my worldview. You know, we saw it last week. You know, the Democrats get to go in the restaurant and do their campaigning. The Republicans get to stand in the parking lot. You know, and so I think a lot of people are fed up with that. And coin offers them a little way to fight back without fighting, you know.

Yeah. I want to, before we let you go, I want to ask you about some recent action that you all have taken in regards to Hurricane Helene. Yes. And obviously this is so, so devastated. the Southeast, share a little bit about the response that you all are taking at coin? Oh, it was, I mean, once again, I said our customers are the best. And so I told you, we vote quarterly on charity, so we did a charity vote. And we were kind of already thinking about it, but all of a sudden, hundreds of customers

were like, I love these charities, they're great conservative organizations, but we have to help with Helene. So we did a little research, and we gave money last night to two great organizations. One was the Trump GoFundMe. It had a goal of raising a million. It was over $4 million last night. I'm sure it's higher. You know, former senator, Kelly Loughler donated,

Bill Ackman, some really great people, but then just a lot of people giving $25, whatever. And then we gave some money to Samaritans purse, which is a North Carolina charity originally founded by Reverend Billy Graham. And, you know, we just wanted to make sure we were on the map and saying we're going to help. And, you know, if folks, if listeners of this show have ideas

or we solicit our customers, if there's better, different charities that we could be helped, You know, it's Robc at coin.com. Send me an email and let me know if you have any ideas for charities. But, you know, we wanted to start there and go from there. But we were just real proud. And like I said, you know, we listen to our customers. You know, we work for them.

Rob, if folks want to check out the car and want to learn more about it, how can they do that? Really, two things. Go to the website, www.com, C-O-I-G-N.com. Or you can go to the Republic and learn more about us, republic.com forward slash coin. and you can learn all about the company and what we've been up to and, you know, kind of check under the hood. But, you know, we'd love to have your listeners as customers, you know, we really think we have a great product. Excellent.

Rob, thank you so much. Encourage all our listeners to check out, coin, learn more about it. Thanks for your time. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. That's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for joining us here on the Daily Signal podcast.

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