The largest retailer in the U.S. has partnered with fintech Affirm to offer customers point of sale loans at 4,000...
There is a growing competition brewing in the payments space and Affirm is look to stay near the top as they recently announced the move into financing small ticket purchases; the move comes after Visa and MasterCard made similar announcements; the payments space has become a highly competitive market where customers look for the simplest, most transparent way to make a purchase of any size. Source.
While speaking on Business Insider’s podcast “Success! How I Did It” Affirm CEO Max Levchin shared the story about how he started PayPal; Levchin moved out to Silicon Valley after starting a business that didn’t succeed and was sleeping on his friend’s floor; he saw Peter Thiel deliver a lecture and stayed after to chat with the then hedge fund manager; they met the next morning for breakfast and Thiel liked one of his two ideas, he decided to invest and that was the company that became PayPal. Source.
This week’s PeerIQ Weekly Industry Update covers the Fed raising rates by 25 bps, Affirm’s big fundraising and securitization news; PNC announced their new lending pro cuts through their mobile wallet and anticipate it will outperform branch loans; Equifax completed their first Securitization, a $200mn deal backed by lender fee revenues; PeerIQ does a deep analysis on the Sharpe Ratio which helps to gauge risk-adjusted returns. Source.
According to Bloomberg, the company is in advanced talks for the latest round; the valuation would be about double of Affirm’s last round in April 2016; Affirm works with over 1,000 retailers and also recently rolled out a mobile app which includes a virtual credit card; the point of sale loans have annual percentage rates between 10-30%. Source
The company is introducing the new account by leveraging a bank partner; the account will pay 2% APY and will...
Affirm announced they are partnering with merchants to make financing available in-store; Affirm InStore works similar to their online point of sale solution where customers can pay for purchases over time with fixed installments; the company also announced that consumers will be able to add a newly issued Affirm virtual card via Apple Pay. Source
While on the surface Affirm’s business may appear to be focused on lending and payments, the company can also help merchants in marketing; the company has large amounts of data on who is buying products, what they are buying and where they are buying; with this information they plan to offer their merchants more services in the future; Tearsheet shares more on Affirm’s plans. Source
Affirm has raised $200 million in its latest round led by GIC, a Singaporean sovereign-wealth fund; the valuation of the company is between $1.5 and $2 billion according to sources, which is about double the valuation of the company last year; Khosla Ventures and Spark Capital also participated in the round. Source
Article shares a story of a $200 jean purchase that was made with the help of point of sale finance firm Affirm; Affirm works with over 1,000 retailers to provide installment loans; merchants benefit since consumers end up spending more, but some critics say it promotes poor consumer behavior; article shares the history of consumer credit and the changes in point of sale financing. Source