How Your Amplify Card Earns 10% Back

What the Amplify card is, and what it is not

Amplify is a benefit your employer offers. You fund an Amplify account with your own money. You spend it with the Amplify card at participating stores in a set of essential categories. When you make a qualifying purchase, a benefit comes back into the same account.

Amplify is not a bank, and an Amplify account is not a bank account. It is not a loan, a line of credit or a credit card. It is not an investment or a savings product. It is not insurance. It is not tax, legal or financial advice.

The card is issued through partner banks. Amplify is not the issuer. When your card is issued you get a cardholder agreement, and it covers the card itself. The money you load is held at a partner bank, in an account kept separate from Amplify's own operating funds. It can leave that account only as a purchase at a participating store.

Where the card works

The card works in nine essential categories: groceries, housing, gas and electric, water and sewer, internet, mobile phone, fuel, childcare and auto repair.

It also has to be an enrolled store. Two things must both be true: the purchase is in one of those categories, and the store is enrolled in Amplify. A covered category at a store that is not enrolled does not work. An enrolled store with a purchase outside the categories does not work either. Anything else declines.

That is on purpose. The rule exists so the benefit lands on the bills a household cannot avoid.

If a purchase is declined

A decline means the purchase did not meet the rules, or Amplify could not confirm that it did. Amplify may decline any transaction. It declines when it cannot check, in the time the card network allows, that a purchase meets the rules.

Declining when unsure is a deliberate safety choice, not a glitch. It also means you should not rely on the card in a situation where a decline would cause you harm. Keep another way to pay.

When your cash back arrives, and what happens with returns

Cash back posts to your Amplify account after the purchase settles with the store. That is normally within a few business days. You do not claim it and you do not submit anything.

If a purchase is later reversed, refunded or disputed, the cash back on it is reversed too. A refund from a store goes back to your Amplify account. It does not come to you as cash.

No cash out

Money in an Amplify account cannot be turned into cash. There is no ATM withdrawal. There is no transfer to a bank account or another card. There is no cash back at the register, and no payout of a balance.

This is built into the program. It is not a setting that someone can switch on. The program has no way to do it.

What it costs you

You pay no monthly fee, no annual fee, no interest and no minimum balance to take part. Your employer pays a fixed annual fee for each employee who enrolls. If a fee that applies to you were ever introduced, it would be listed in the Benefits Package, and you would get notice first.

Loads and cash back are subject to limits. The limits, and any fees, are set out in your enrollment package and will be published before enrollment opens.

Who can enroll

To enroll you must be at least 18, live in the United States, be able to enter a binding contract, and work for an employer that offers Amplify. You also must not be subject to sanctions or otherwise barred from holding a financial account in the United States. Amplify may ask you to verify your identity.

Your employer decides whether to offer Amplify, and which of its employees are eligible.

If you leave your job

Your employer decides whether to continue the program. If you leave your employer, or your employer ends the program, Amplify will tell you what happens next and give you a period to spend what is in the account.

How long that period is, and what happens to anything unspent at the end of it, are set out in the Benefits Package. Amplify is not part of your compensation. It is also not a promise of continued employment.

Taxes

Cash back you earn up to the amount of the membership fee is reported as imputed income, in the same way a lifestyle spending account is. Cash back above that amount is not taxable.

That describes how the program is reported. It is not tax advice, your own circumstances may differ, and you should speak to your own adviser.

Is Amplify available yet?

Not yet. Amplify has not launched. It launches in New Jersey, and it is selecting its founding employer cohort now. No launch date has been announced, and nothing on this site is a promise that Amplify will launch or that it will look exactly as described here.

Ask your employer about it, and see the Amplify FAQ and the page for employees.