With growing debit card usage, and few rewards programs with meaningful payment bonuses (note 1), the market seems right for a focused debit-card-rewards provider.

But the market has not evolved as fast as many thought. Capital One threw in the towel on its decoupled debit rewards program. Finovate alum (video here) Tempo Payments is refocusing on affinity-branded cards, which often have a reward component paid for by the affinity partner.

But a new entrant, PerkStreet Financial (powered by The Bancorp Bank) may have the right answer: reward levels on par with credit-card programs, 1% of spending value, 4x the average debit card program (note 1). The company emphasizes rewards paid via free coffee (nice tie-in to the name), music downloads (going after the youth market), or gift cards from name-brand retailers (adds retail interest to the account). See the first screenshot.

But with lower interchange, and no monthly fee (note 2), how can a bank afford such high rewards?

• No branches
• Rewards paid out on retail stored-value cards which are provided to the bank by retailers at prices less than face value
• $30 overdraft charges (but it's OPT-IN optional)

$50 new-account bonus: If you navigate directly to the website, there is no new account bonus (see screenshot 2). But if you use Google, it's hard to miss PerkStreet's ad (screenshot 3) or the affiliate deals. Going to the site through those options earns you a $50 bonus (screenshot 4), and in the case of the Google ad, an additional $50 qualified satisfaction guarantee (screenshot 5). 

1. PerkStreet perks page (link; 2 Dec 2009)

2. Standard homepage with no offer, emphasizing free

3. Google search for "PerkStreet Financial" (2 Dec 2009, 5:30 PM Pacific from Seattle IP address)

4. PerkStreet homepage accessed via affiliate (Doughroller link)
$50 bonus with $25 opening deposit and three months of activity

5. Landing page offer (link, 2 Dec 2009)
$50 bonus now with direct deposit, and $50 more if not satisfied within eight months.
To qualify as not satisfied, you must have set up direct deposit within 60 days of account opening, made 10 or more debit transactions per month for six straight months, and have closed your account within eight months of opening.

Notes:
1. According to the fine print disclosures on PerkStreet's homepage, 17% of debit cards provide rewards with an average value of 0.23% of spending (source cited: BAI/Hitachi 2008 Study of Consumer Payment Preferences).
2. The account has a monthly fee ($4.50) only if there is no activity.