Dallas Fintech Zirtue expands its platform to include existing loans »Dallas innovates

So you went on a family trip a few years back and paid for your brother-in-law’s hotel room. He promised to pay you back as soon as he got his tax refund, but the refund came – and the year passed – and he still owes you the dough. Now, every Thanksgiving, there’s excitement along with turkey and cranberry sauce.

Solving awkward situations like that just got easier after Zirtue, a Dallas relationship-based lending startup, announced that it’s expanding its technology platform to include a “payback request” feature. The new feature is aimed at people with an existing loan with a friend or family member who may have put a strain on their relationship.

The expansion enhances the company’s core offering, which facilitates new low-interest loans between family members and friends, to allow the movement of “paper napkins”—outstanding, existing, non-digital loans—to Zirtue’s AI-powered app. The platform then manages the loan, prioritizing efficiency and contributing to to preserve relationships, according to Zirtue.

Dennis Cail, CEO and co-founder of Zirtue [Photo: Zirtue]

Dennis Cail, the fintech’s CEO and co-founder (along with CFO Michael Seay), says the new feature was added in response to requests from the platform’s most active users.

Typically, he explains, many of Zirtue’s lender users are successful individuals who have been hit repeatedly for money and want to start getting paid back, since today’s stock market is less favorable than it was four or five years ago.

“There are a lot of lenders out there who have multiple people that they’ve lent money to,” he says. “And they’re like, ‘Look, if I have a chance to get one of those loans paid back, it’s worth it.’ “

According to a survey and analysis by comparison website Finder, Americans borrow an estimated $184 billion from friends and family each year, with an average loan amount of $3,329. The most important reasons for such transactions are to pay utilities, other bills and rent, the survey showed.

An alternative to high-interest credit cards and payday loans

Founded in 2018, Zirtue says it is the first platform to provide structure and accountability for peer-to-peer lending, creating transparency between borrowers and lenders by offering manageable payment plans, loan tracking, an automatic payment feature and recurring payment reminders for borrowers.

It also offers an “alternative payment solution” to enterprise companies such as AT&T and Reliant Energy that enable their customers to pay their bills directly through the app. With “a couple of dozen” corporate partners, the B2B option now accounts for about 60 percent of Zirtue’s business, Cail says.

With a total of 21 employees, the company has processed “close to $80 million in loans” and has more than 300,000 registered users so far, he adds. It has also raised nearly $7 million from investors including Morgan Stanley, Northwestern Mutual and Houston-based Mercury Fund.

Touted by Cail as “driving financial inclusion and equity,” Zirtue is positioned as an alternative to high-interest credit cards, risky check-cashing services and onerous payday loans for unbanked or underbanked individuals.

That’s increasingly important these days, the company argues, with interest rates rising and consumer debt at a record $16.9 trillion by the end of 2022, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

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