FS Card Inc., an emerging financial services leader for underserved consumers, today announced it has raised $150 million in financing to fund future growth. Through its Build Card product, FS Card will expand access to traditional credit and create an on-ramp into the financial mainstream for small-dollar loan customers. The new credit facility closing comes as FS Card wraps up a year of rapid growth, with Build Card portfolio expansion of nearly 500 percent in 2017.
"At FS Card, we are re-imagining the small-dollar lending landscape and working to meet the needs of a customer base that has been poorly served by existing credit options," said FS Card Founder and CEO Marla Blow. "With this facility, we are now strategically positioned for rapid growth as we expand our Build Card acquisition engine and continue empowering consumers to manage their liquidity needs at significantly lower costs."
The funding will be used for sustained portfolio build as part of the company's ongoing commitment to financial inclusion in a market where a new rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is likely to impact access to alternative credit products.
"The changing regulatory landscape makes it more important than ever to commit to providing reasonably-priced credit to customers who may otherwise face credit scarcity in the coming years," added Blow.
According to Prosperity Now and The Federal Reserve, more than half of Americans are credit invisible or subprime, while 47 percent do not have $400 to pay for an emergency expense. FS Card leverages its proprietary machine learning algorithms to actively meet the increasing demand of underserved consumers for fairly-priced credit with a prime-like experience. The Build Card's customer engagement strategy is based on behavioral principles—nudges, incentives and rewards—that encourage cardholders to improve their credit by paying off their debt faster and avoiding delinquency.
About FS Card Inc.
FS Card Inc. is a Washington, D.C.–based next-generation credit card platform that embraces technology to supply more affordable products to small-dollar loan customers. Its mission is to enable underserved borrowers to meet their everyday liquidity needs in a flexible and convenient way. The FS Card team features industry-leading credit, capital markets and regulatory expertise, and has deployed a unique underwriting platform that transforms small-dollar lending. FS Card is committed to working with its sponsor bank to offer simple, fair and transparent mainstream credit products. For more information, visit www.fscardinc.com.
