FAQs

Freekick is a set of premium identity protection and credit building services built on the foundation of an FDIC-insured savings account. 

Your FreeKick account includes services that monitor credit and protect the identities of each of your family members. FreeKick provides credit monitoring and identity protection services for up to two adult parents and six children aged 0 to 25. 

FreeKick also reliably and safely builds credit for your children aged 13 to 25. FreeKick enables credit building by saving, not spending, allowing you to demonstrate good financial habits to your children. 

FreeKick includes an FDIC-insured savings account, so the money you deposit in your FreeKick account is insured by the FDIC up to $250,000. 

Freekick is available exclusively at www.FreeKick.bank from Austin Capital Bank, an independent community bank that offers accounts and services nationwide and is recognized as one of the leading independent community banks in the United States.  

No. There is no impact on the parent or legal guardian’s credit. 

No credit check is performed and you do not need to have good credit to open a FreeKick account. 

FreeKick is a credit-building service offered by Austin Capital Bank. Austin Capital Bank is an independent community bank and member of the FDIC. As an FDIC insured bank, all deposits are insured by the FDIC to the maximum allowable by law. No money insured by the FDIC has ever been lost by a depositor. Austin Capital Bank is subject to rigorous federal and state oversight and examinations on a regular basis by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Texas Department of Savings and Mortgage Lending. Read more about the bank behind FreeKick here: Austin Capital Bank 

Only a FDIC insured bank can own a .BANK website in the United States and there are strict controls in place to prevent anyone other than a bank from obtaining a .BANK domain address. By using .BANK we can provide you with additional fraud protections. Over 90% of cyberattacks start with email phishing and by using .BANK fraudsters are unable to use a close misspelling of FreeKick (ex. FreeKlick.bank) in an email phishing attempt to trick you into providing your personal information or login credentials, because they cannot obtain a .BANK website or email address. To learn more about .BANK and the extra security it provides, please visit https://www.register.bank/ 

As an authorized user your children are simply piggybacking on your credit card’s payment history. The moment they are removed as an authorized user, all the credit history is removed from their credit profile.

Having an authorized user on your credit card also combines your spending and credit utilization with theirs, which can harm your credit score.

FreeKick establishes and builds your child’s credit so that it’s independent from your own and they keep their credit history. Good credit can save your child $200,000 over their lifetime!

The authorized user approach has many drawbacks:  

• Your child is not building their own credit, they are ‘piggybacking’ on your credit, when your child is removed as an authorized user from your card, your credit history is permanently removed from your child’s credit profile
• You must have good credit and an excellent payment history; as an authorized user, your child inherits your credit history for the card, so if you paid late or missed a payment, your child’s credit score and profile is negatively impacted
  
• Your child can legally use your credit card at their discretion
• Your child’s spending impacts your credit utilization
• Your card issuer must allow and report credit on authorized users, specifically minor authorized users
• Many lenders ignore authorized user tradelines and credit history when making credit decisions 

A FICO® credit score requires at least one active credit tradeline open for at least 6 months. The three major credit bureaus do not allow credit reporting for minors.​ 

If your child was an adult when the account was opened, we will begin reporting credit 90 days after the account was opened.​ They will receive a credit score once they have had a credit tradeline for 6 months (including accounts other than FreeKick). 

Upon signing up for FreeKick, your child will still be a joint owner of a credit building loan even though we will not be reporting this account to the credit bureaus. When your child becomes an adult, they can begin reporting their FreeKick account. This report will contain the loan origination date and most recent 24 months of payment history. 

FreeKick sponsorship is limited to your own lineal descendants and/or those you have legal custody or guardianship over.

You can sponsor up to 6 children at a time.

The two most common reasons for failed funds transfers from external accounts are 1) insufficient funds and 2) incorrectly entered account information. 

Follow the steps below to successfully fund your account: 

1. Check your account balance. If it is below the transfer amount, increase the balance to the required amount and then retry the funds transfer. 

1. If the account balance is sufficient, re-enter your bank account information under profile information. 

After you (the parent) completed the application, an email and SMS message was sent to your child (or children) to complete the application by reviewing and signing the required account agreements. Until your child has signed the agreements, the account will remain inactive.  

Follow up with your child to make sure they have received email or SMS message with a link to complete the FreeKick application. The link will expire 30 days after it has been sent. Please contact customer service if your child has never received a message from FreeKick at (833) 288-5004

When your child becomes an adult, they simply ‘Activate Credit Reporting’ and we report their credit account and credit history to the three major consumer credit bureaus. This can jumpstart their profile and credit score with up to five years of history.  

A FICO credit score requires a minimum of at least one active credit account open for at least 6 months. This means the soonest they will have a FICO credit score is just a bit over 6 months after reporting. 

When your child becomes a legal adult, they will need to take the following steps to activate credit reporting:​ 

1. Select “Activate Credit Reporting” in their dashboard​ 
2. Successfully pass a federally required identity verification process​ 
3. Release you as a joint borrower and accept individual responsibility for the credit builder loan account​ 
4. E-Sign and acknowledge account documents and disclosures​ 

Yes. When your child becomes and adult and has been reporting their credit for over 6 months they will have a credit score in their account page in the customer portal. If they’ve had a credit line prior to FreeKick you can expect to view this score earlier than 6 months. 

At the bottom of your child’s account page their is a link to close the credit builder accounts. You will be asked to answer a few questions before you confirm account closure. To transfer the deposit back into your external bank account, you will need to initiate the transfer from the child’s account page on the “Funds Transfer” tile. This tile will only appear after you’ve successfully closed the child’s credit builder account.

If you wish to transfer funds to a different external bank account, you will need to contact customer support. To protect you and your money, this type of funds transfer is subject to an enhanced compliance and risk review. Customer support is available: Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. CST at 833-288-5004 or reach us on chat by clicking the Livechat icon. Outside of business hours, you can leave us a message here: https://www.freekick.bank/contact-us/. 

No. You only need a bank account in good standing and to fund your FreeKick deposit account.

You may add a child to your FreeKick account as soon as you receive their social security number, before or after birth. At that point, we can begin monitoring and protecting their identity and credit profile. Once your children turn 13, they can activate credit building while still enjoying identity protection. 

Because FreeKick accounts are parent-sponsored, the parent must be at least 18 years old and a permanent U.S. resident with a physical U.S. residence (address). We will also require:

• A valid social security number (SSN) or individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN)
• A checking account, debit card, or prepaid card in good standing
• A mobile phone number, Google Voice account
• An email address

Yes. All FreeKick deposit accounts are held by Austin Capital Bank. Austin Capital Bank is an FDIC insured independent community bank. Your deposits are insured up to the maximum allowable by law which is currently $250,000 for individually owned accounts and $500,000 for jointly owned accounts. 

You may sponsor up to 6 children. FreeKick sponsorship is limited to your own lineal descendants and/or those you have legal custody or guardianship over. 

After you (the parent or legal guardian) completed the application, an email and SMS message was sent to your child asking them to complete the application by reviewing and signing the required account agreements, until your child has signed the agreements, the account will remain inactive.  

Follow up with your child to make sure they have received the email or SMS message with a link to complete the FreeKick application. Ask them to complete the required steps to activate the account. The link will expire 30 days after it has been sent. Please contact customer service at (833) 288-5004 if your child has never received a message from FreeKick. 

A FreeKick account lasts as long as you’d like it to! Make the deposit to set and forget it (while we monitor your family’s identities in the background) or as long as you make the annual recurring payment. Credit building for children expires after they turn 25 but they are still qualified for identity protection.  

At the bottom of your child’s account page in your user dashboard there is a link to close the child’s FreeKick credit builder account. You will be asked to answer a few questions before you confirm account closure. To transfer the deposited funds back to your external bank account, you will need to initiate the transfer from the child’s account page on the “Funds Transfer” tile. This tile will only appear after you’ve closed the child’s credit builder account. See ‘Funds Transfer’ FAQ for additional information. 

There are no differences among the deposit amount and annual fee options.  

100% of your deposit, plus interest earned, is returned when the account is closed. Your funds are held in an FDIC-insured FreeKick savings account and the only difference is whether you make a deposit or a recurring annual payment. 

Your account must be open, fully funded, and in good standing for a minimum of 90 days before credit reporting begins. The timing of credit reporting is different for adult children vs minor children. 

You may only see your child’s credit score once they have reached the age of 18 and activated their credit building.

We begin reporting credit when an account has been open for 90 days and credit building has been activated. Each credit bureau takes a different amount of time to process the credit we report. 

• To have a FICO® credit score requires at least one active credit tradeline open for at least 6 months 

• To have a Vantage® credit score requires at least one month of credit history on one tradeline in the last 24 months 

We provide a free FICO score monthly to track your child’s progress once credit reporting is activated. 90% of top lenders use FICO scores when making credit decisions. 

A personal checking account in good standing at a US based bank or credit union may be used to fund your FreeKick deposit account.

No. Your account must be funded using an account funds transfer not a payment card. 

The two most common reasons for failed funds transfers from external accounts are 1) insufficient funds and 2) incorrectly entered account information. 

Follow the steps below to successfully fund your account: 

• Check your account balance. If it is below the transfer amount, increase the balance to the required amount and then retry the funds transfer.

• If the account balance is sufficient, re-enter your bank account information under profile information. 

You have up to 30 days and three funds transfer attempts to successfully fund your account once you complete an account application. 

100% of the amount you deposited will be returned to the external bank account used to fund your FreeKick deposit account. If the account you want funds transferred to is different than the source of the funds additional fraud procedures will be applied and your funds transfer will be delayed if we suspect fraud. See ‘What happens if I change my external deposit account?’ FAQ. 

FreeKick is not designed to be a transaction account or mechanism for transferring funds between external bank accounts.  

If you wish to transfer funds to a different external bank account, you will need to contact customer support. To protect you and your money, this type of funds transfer is subject to an enhanced identity verification and fraud risk review and your funds transfer will be delayed. Please see your account agreements and the terms and conditions of your accounts for additional detail. 

Customer support is available: Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. CT at 833-288-5004 or reach us on chat by clicking the Support icon.