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Using Alpha Bank: Deposits, Savings & Rewards

Alpha Bank is where students manage their Alphas, save for rewards, and learn real-world money skills. Here's how deposits, savings, interest, and gift card redemption work.

Watch the full Alpha Bank walkthrough video here: Alpha Bank Introduction Video

1. How Students Earn Alphas

Students earn Alphas by completing academic work in their apps: mastering skills, being consistent, and achieving strong growth and mastery results on tests. Each week, students receive a paycheck email showing how much they earned the previous week.

2. Allocating Your Deposits

When Alphas come in, they appear as pending deposits on the Alpha Bank main screen. Students must decide where to put them before they become available.

Three options for each deposit:

  1. Put it all in Checking

  2. Put it all in Savings

  3. Split between the two (choose any amount for each)

Once allocated, the balances update immediately. Students can access Alpha Bank through StudyReel or Timeback using their existing login.

3. Checking vs. Savings

Students have two accounts in Alpha Bank:

Checking Account - This is the spending account. The balance shown in the top right of the screen is how many Alphas are available to spend right now.

Savings Account - This is where Alphas earn interest, just like a real bank. Savings has a lockdown period: once Alphas are deposited into savings, they must stay there for 14 days before they can be moved. During lockdown, students can see a countdown timer and how much interest they are earning.

Interest compounds weekly, which is actually faster than most real-world savings accounts. The longer students keep Alphas in savings, the more they earn.

4. Transferring Between Accounts

Students can move Alphas between checking and savings at any time, as long as savings funds are not in lockdown. Before confirming a transfer, the system shows how the move will affect interest earnings.

5. Spending Alphas in the Shop

Students can use their checking balance to buy gift cards in the Alpha Bank Shop.

How to redeem:

  1. Open the Shop from the Alpha Bank screen

  2. Browse available gift cards (items that require more Alphas than you have will be grayed out)

  3. Select the gift card you want and confirm the purchase

  4. The order appears in your transaction history with its status

Gift cards are virtual and delivered electronically.

6. Parent Bonuses and Fines

Parents have the option to add bonuses or fines to their child's Alpha Bank account:

  • Bonuses can be added for things like completing chores, good behavior, or extra effort

  • Fines can be deducted for missed responsibilities

Both show up in the student's transaction history, giving the whole family visibility into how Alphas are managed.

7. Gift Card Delivery

Gift cards are processed Monday through Friday and delivered within 24-48 hours. Students usually receive their rewards before the weekend.

We partner with a rewards platform called Tremendous for gift card fulfillment. The reward is delivered to the parent's email address on file. Please save [email protected] as a trusted sender so it doesn't land in junk or promotions.

8. Quick Tips

  • Allocate pending deposits as soon as they arrive

  • Use the Savings Account to earn interest while saving for bigger rewards

  • Check your paycheck email each week to track what you earned

  • Parents: explore bonuses and fines to reinforce household expectations

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