Empower Finance, a San Francisco, CA-based financial technology company, acquired Petal, a NYC-based consumer credit card and financial technology company, and completed the acquisition of Cashalo, a Manila, Philippines consumer credit and lending company.
The amount of the deals were not disclosed.
Petal and Cashalo give Empower a strategic presence in the credit card category in the U.S. and the credit market in Southeast Asia, respectively.
Petal is a credit card company at the forefront of using cash flow underwriting as an alternative to traditional credit scores. They give access to Visa® credit cards that don’t require a credit score to qualify, via cash flow underwriting, enabling individuals to use their open banking data to qualify for credit and establish a credit history. This technology makes credit more accessible to millions of U.S. consumers without credit histories, or for whom traditional credit scores do not tell the whole story. Since 2018, nearly 400,000 consumers have been approved for the Petal credit card, which is issued by WebBank.
Cashalo is a fintech platform that delivers digital credit to unbanked and underserved Filipinos. The loans under its platform are financed by Paloo Financing Inc.
Led by CEO Warren Hogarth, Empower is a financial technology company that aims to expand access to fair credit and give the opportunity to improve financial security and mobility. The company underwrites individuals using real-time cash flow, other nontraditional data, and machine learning to assess financial responsibility and credit risk differently than mainstream lenders, which rely primarily on credit agency reporting. This proprietary underwriting, coupled with credit products that are structured to match today’s fluid working patterns, allows the company to offer lines of credit, which are issued by FinWise Bank, Member FDIC. Founded in 2016, Empower has 2 million active subscribers and achieved profitability in 2022.
FinSMEs
11/04/2024