The news: Venmo launched Venmo Stash, a bundled brand rewards system for users, per a press release. 

Centralized within Venmo’s Venmo Debit Mastercard, cardholders can select handpicked bundles of their favorite brands—which include Uber, Lyft, Target, Walmart, and Sephora—to earn a flat 1% back on their purchases. Users can raise that rate to 2% by enabling auto-reloads to their wallets and 5% for adding at least $500 in direct deposits on Venmo each month.

Cashback rewards are capped at $100 per month, and users can switch bundles each month.

Why this matters: Venmo is trying to solidify loyalty among Gen Z consumers, who are already more likely to pay by debit card than other generations within the last 30 days, per November 2023 Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta data. Juicing rewards for debit gives this cohort a sense of perceived safety in their payment choice with rewards typically reserved for credit cards.

This allows Venmo to further entrench the audiences it captured through zeitgeisty, celeb-backed ad campaigns like “Venmo Everything” and campus partnerships through the Big Ten and Big 12, deepening the gains made over Q3 2025: Venmo debit actives increased over 40% and Venmo revenues hit 20% YoY growth. 

Solidifying rewards through merchant-specific offers also connects well with consumers: 31.3% of satisfied cardholders said they maxed out their redeemable rewards for merchant-linked offers—well above product-specific offers or general rewards. Giving consumers an element of choice with their rewards redemption can foster loyalty through a sense of personalization—also favored by Gen Z and millennials alike.

Our take: Injecting more choice into consumers’ rewards adds incentives to make a card top of wallet. Leaning into flexible rewards and card-linked offers can help secure younger consumers who are looking for value and functionality at checkout during economic uncertainty.