Branch, the scheduling and pay management app for hourly workers, has added a new pay-on-demand service called Pay, which is now available to anyone who downloads the Branch app. It’s an attempt to provide a fee-based alternative to payday lending, where borrowers charge exorbitant rates to lenders on short term loans or cash advances. Borrowers […]
View More Targeting payday lenders, Branch adds pay on-demand features for hourly workersCategory: credit
MyEquifax.com is yet another security disaster
One would think that having one of the most high-profile breaches in recent memory would make a company take security to heart, but Equifax is full of surprises. The latest is that its MyEquifax.com site, to which the company invites those affected by its poor security practices to freeze and unfreeze their credit, itself has extremely poor security.
View More MyEquifax.com is yet another security disasterAffirm’s latest partnership brings its alternative financing to Walmart’s U.S. stores and website
Financial technology company Affirm, which offers consumers an alternative to cash and credit when paying for large purchases, has scored a notable new partner: Walmart. The companies announced this morning that Affirm’s financing options would be made available in over 4,000 Walmart Supercenters across the U.S., and will roll out to Walmart.com in the weeks […]
View More Affirm’s latest partnership brings its alternative financing to Walmart’s U.S. stores and websitePetal’s no-fee credit card for the credit score-less is now open to the public
Petal, the startup credit card company that’s offering a no-fee credit line to people without a credit history, is now publicly available. Launched earlier this year by co-founders Jason Gross, Andrew Endicott, Andrew Ehrich, and Jake Arenas, Petal has received a $34 million credit facility from Jeffries and Silicon Valley Bank to bring its consumer […]
View More Petal’s no-fee credit card for the credit score-less is now open to the publicMobile bank Chime picks up credit score improvement service Pinch in all-stock deal
Chime, the no-fees mobile bank valued at $500 million as of its last round, has put some of its funds to use with its first acquisition. The deal is for Pinch, a startup that was focused on helping millennials and other young adults build better credit. It was best known for a service called PinchRent, […]
View More Mobile bank Chime picks up credit score improvement service Pinch in all-stock dealPayday startups are increasing access to wages, but is “make any day payday” the right choice?
Kristen Berman Contributor Kristen Berman is a co-founder of Duke’s Common Cents Lab with Professor Dan Ariely. Common Cents is generously supported by MetLife Foundation. Kristen was on the founding team of Google’s behavioral economics team, and was previously the founder of Irrational Labs, a behavioral economics nonprofit focused on health and happiness. More posts […]
View More Payday startups are increasing access to wages, but is “make any day payday” the right choice?Credit Karma acquires mortgage platform Approved
Credit Karma, the service best known for providing free credit score monitoring and other financial advice (mostly to millennials), is getting into the mortgage business. The company today announced that it has acquired Approved, a mortgage platform that brings modern technology to a process that even today often still involves faxing documents back and forth. The […]
View More Credit Karma acquires mortgage platform ApprovedThe dramatic rise and fall of online P2P lending in China
Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on TechNode, an editorial partner of TechCrunch based in China. When Emily Zhang was interning with a peer-to-peer (P2P) lending firm in the Summer of 2016, her main task was to carry out research on other P2P lending firms. She found the rates of return tempting and some underlying […]
View More The dramatic rise and fall of online P2P lending in ChinaThe Third Age of credit
Society is beginning to wake up to a tremendous shift in one of the most fundamental underpinnings to how we live our lives: the credit system. Even though it’s not commonly known, credit infrastructure has existed about as long as civilization itself. In one way or another, credit systems have always formalized the one essential basis for relationships between people: trust.
View More The Third Age of creditTesla uses auto leases to raise $546 million in asset backed securities
Tesla is using its car leases as collateral for a big $546 million loan as it turns to debt markets to raise additional cash to combat the blistering burn rate of its auto and energy business, according to multiple reports.
The bonds are pegged to leases of its Model S and X cars, and it marks the first time that Elon’s electric albatross has turned to asset backed securities for new… Read More
Ex-Uber data chief Kevin Novak joins LA-based startup Tala in big win for LA ecosystem
Kevin Novak, the architect of Uber’s dynamic pricing technology and the head of its data team, has joined the Los Angeles-based financial services startup Tala as its new head of data. Read More