Fintech for Good: Family-run business success stories with LoanPro, Crypto Asset Recovery and more

This August at Fintech Times, we want to highlight some of the amazing things fintechs are doing around the world. We always hear about “the latest breakthrough innovation that does good for society,” but do these innovations do good for those already in an advantageous position, or do they help make the world of finance more accessible? For us at The Fintech Times, fintech for good means companies that want to help people who desperately need it, and prioritize financial inclusion and sustainability.

For many established organisations, the pandemic proved to be a difficult time. Everyday life as we knew it was completely uprooted and attitudes to work changed. Remote working was introduced, and the way companies interacted with customers had to change as well. Many people lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic, but this unfortunate event led many to become entrepreneurs and work with their families to deal with financial causes close to home.

We’ve covered how some companies were able to use the pandemic as a pivot and prosper as a result here, but in this article we wanted to highlight people who took matters into their own hands when faced with problems and started their own family- running companies to give others good customer experiences.

CryptoAssetRecovery.com

Chris Brooksfounder of CryptoAssetRecovery.comthe company that does exactly what it says on the tin (recover lost crypto assets), told The Fintech Times about how he and his son started a company aimed at recovering funds in locked crypto wallets: “CryptoAssetRecovery.com was founded by a father-son team to help people recover the passwords of their self-storage Bitcoin and other crypto wallets. We have a somewhat unique business model, in that we only get paid once (and if!) we recover funds for a client. An aspect the thing is, we don’t charge an upfront fee – clients can hire us to help recover their passwords, even if they don’t have cash on hand.

“For example, we cracked an interesting wallet for a client named Alex in mid-July. Alex contacted us in October 2021 with a 21-word mnemonic phrase that should have given him access to the wallet, but didn’t. (Blockchain.com generated these mnemonic phrases that were between 11 and 25 words in the early years of its history, before switching to the standard BIP39 12-word seed phrases). We had to write custom code to figure out what was wrong with his phrase and run millions of variations until we finally cracked it eight months later. When we came up with one Zoom call and opened his wallet Alex stayed outside his van. His comment was: ‘You have no idea how much I need this right now!’

“Bitcoin has always been hailed as a technology that is extremely useful for people who do not have access to traditional banking services. While we are based in the United States, many of our customers are not. In fact, when we recently did an analysis of the wallets that we have cracked so far in 2021 and 2022, just over a quarter of them came from customers living in African countries like Nigeria and Kenya where Bitcoin use is widespread.”

LoanPro

Rhett Robertsco-founder and CEO, LoanPro, a core lending software specializing in loan servicing, told The Fintech Times about the evolution of the family company: “Fundamental to the culture of LoanPro is the belief that you can turn an idea into reality with support and hard work. From long weekends at the office to vacations filled with meetings and brainstorming, my brothers and I are no strangers to hard work. And our support comes from each other.

“My brothers, Ben and Lloyd Roberts, and I had entrepreneurial experience before we invested in a used car together in 2006. Summers mowing lawns, and a myriad of businesses ranging from Dutch oven cooking to raising cows on a farm, we knew what it took to run a business.

“When we started financing vehicles, we quickly experienced the pain that many modern lenders still feel today – loan servicing. Unsatisfied with the inaccuracy and lack of transparency that most lending platforms offered, we decided to create our own lending platform.

“The software we created met our needs so well that other car lenders started requesting access to the new platform. It soon became clear that each lender did things a little differently. To accommodate these differences, a new version was created and marketed under the name “AutoPal “, which became extremely popular with customers in all 50 US states and all provinces of Canada.

“In 2013, we started again from scratch and built an application designed to accommodate multiple loan types, provide greater data visibility, accuracy and scale with users. This application is what we know today as LoanPro.

“Today, LoanPro is growing at a dizzying pace with over 140 employees and is among the 30 fastest growing software companies in the country. Seeing our vision come to life and the process of turning an idea into reality is very satisfying. Being able to do this together as a family and with our LoanPro team members, who I consider family, means the world to us.”