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BFD Expert Voices - Private Credit

BFD Expert Voices

Truist Financial has launched an innovation arm called Truist Foundry, the bank tells Axios exclusively.

Why it matters: The Charlotte-based bank, formed through the 2019 merger of BB&T and SunTrust Bank, is looking to instill a startup mentality and launch new products while operating in a highly regulated environment. 

Details: Truist Foundry is being led by Lindsay Holden, founder of mobile savings and financial literacy app Long Game, which the financial institution acquired this year.

“We're taking business, design, product, engineering, and putting them all in small teams within the technology org,” she says, “and that enables us to take something from ideation all the way to production and bring really cool projects faster to market.” The group has around 45 employees. 

Of note: Prior to the Truist deal, Long Game had raised $20 million from investors like Thrive Capital and Collaborative Fund.

Between the lines: Ken Meyer, chief innovation officer at Truist, said after the merger, backlogs would be so full that innovation would be the first thing to get cut.

“We want to create stuff, and we want to build things," he said. “It's really nice to be able to have a founder of a startup actually help us build this."

What’s next: The first product to come from the Foundry is a relaunch of the Long Game app, rebranded Truist Long Game, which will arrive early next year and help the bank attract customers and help existing users build their savings.

1 big thing: Truist's innovation initiative

Illustration of a hand holding a bank building.

Bilt Rewards, a New York-based startup that offers loyalty and rewards programs to renters, raised $150 million at a $1.5 billion valuation, Ryan writes.

Why it matters: While a lot of fintechs are struggling to raise money, interest in proptech runs countercyclical to most of the market — consumers will always have to pay their rent, after all.

How it works: Bilt offers a loyalty program that provides rewards points to users paying their rent through its platform.

The company also has a co-branded credit card consumers can use to earn points on other purchases.

Like other rewards programs, Bilt points can be used to book travel or fitness classes, shop on Amazon, or they can be redeemed for credits toward rent.

The company says it processes $3 billion in annualized rent payments, and its customers are spending an annualized rate of $1.6 billion with its credit card.

Details: The new funding was led by Left Lane Capital and includes participation from Smash Capital, Wells Fargo, Greystar, Invitation Homes, Camber Creek, Fifth Wall, and Prosus Ventures.

2. The BFD: Bilt valued at $1.5B

Illustration of apartment doorbells with an intercom shaped like a dollar sign.

Meta Pay, formerly known as Facebook Pay,  is deepening its foray into one-click checkout, pitting it against the likes of Google, Apple, and PayPal.

Driving the news: Meta Pay announced today that it has partnered with J.P. Morgan Payments, giving merchants in the bank's network the ability to put a "Meta Pay" button on their checkout page. 

Why it matters: This is a sign that Meta has an interest in building its fintech capabilities outside of its own ecosystem of apps, Lucinda writes.

Background: Better known for allowing person-to-person payments and checkout within its apps (Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp), Meta Pay first made its interest in growing even outside of those walls clear with a Shopify partnership last year.

That gave Shopify merchants the option to have Meta Pay so that customers who have given the social media giant their payment credentials can checkout with a single click.

The big picture: Meta sees the potential to bank the billions of unbanked in the world, with its own platform acting potentially as a critical form of ID — the portal to all financial services — both in the real world and in the metaverse.

" If you’re in the metaverse and wearing a VR headset, you won’t want to have to remove that headset and check your phone for a security code. We are exploring ways to make login and authentication better and more seamless in VR," writes Stephane Kasriel, head of commerce of financial technologies at Meta. 

Yes, but: One year since its Shopify integration, and Meta Pay's button itself still has limited adoption compared to the likes of Apple and Google, despite its broad reach from Meta's own 3.65 billion users and Shopify's millions of merchants. 

Meta deepens one-click checkout play with J.P. Morgan

3. Meta's one-click play

Illustration of a small Meta logo under a magnifying glass surrounded by a larger, out of focus version

The diverging use cases for crypto (Axios)

Different economic conditions across the Americas have created diverging use cases for crypto, Chainalysis has found. The U.S. and Canada have focused on DeFi, leading to wilder price swings. Latin America, meanwhile, has focused on stablecoins as an alternative to its rockier fiat.

A bevy of startups promoting rent reporting as a way to boost credit scores has appeared in recent years. But the NCLC says that it has limited benefits in achieving its goal of helping disadvantaged consumers boost their credit scores.

"Rent reporting risks helping some better-off credit invisible consumers at the cost of literally making other renters homeless," the authors wrote, noting that a single rent delinquency could shut renters out of the housing market. The NCLC recommends that only positive rent data be included in credit reporting.

Marqeta is making a big move beyond cards (Protocol)

The firm is launching a suite of embedded finance products that would enable clients to offer new capabilities, including bill pay, direct deposit, and free ATM access.

4. Credit score

Illustration of a credit card headed towards a goal post to score a touchdown.

• ConnexPay, a payments acceptance and issuance platform, raised $110m led by FTV Capital. www.connexpay.com

• Floryn, a Netherlands-based online lender for SMBs, raised 65m euros ($64m) from NatWest. https://axios.link/3f4nSTS

• Merge, an SF-based API integration service, raised $55m in Series B funding. Accel led and was joined by insiders NEA and Addition. https://axios.link/3zctlPk 

• Moneyhub, a U.K.-based payments platform, raised $39.5m. Legal & General and Lloyds Banking Group led the round. https://axios.link/3N1hbOQ

• WeTravel, an SF-based business management and payments platform for multi-day travel businesses, raised $27m in Series B funding. Left Lane Capital led and was joined by insiders Swift Ventures and Base10. www.wetravel.com

• Yaydoo, the LatAm-focused B2B payments firm recently acquired by Paystand, has acquired Mexican SME payments platform Oyster Financial. https://axios.link/3FaEYd9

5. Deals of the day

• Alexander Höptner is leaving his role as CEO of crypto exchange BitMex after less than two years with the company. Stephan Lutz has been appointed interim CEO. https://axios.link/3TVPIAy

6. It's personnel

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October 25, 2022

1 big thing: Truist's innovation initiative