LOS ANGELES, Jan. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Spring Labs,
which is developing the Spring Protocol, a network designed to
transform how information and data are shared globally, announces
today that industry leaders at the intersection of finance and
technology SoFi, OnDeck Capital, Avant, GreenSky, Funding Circle,
BlueVine, Fundation, Upgrade, Fundbox, and Better Mortgage, among
others, have joined the Spring Founding Industry Partners (SFIP)
Program to help further combat fraud and enhance their ID
verification capabilities, effectively lowering the cost and
increasing the security of issuing financial products. SFIP
participants, in aggregate, have helped fund more than $100 billion in consumer or small business loans
since inception. This announcement follows the recent news
that Gary Cohn, former Director of
the U.S. National Economic Council and former President and Chief
Operating Officer of Goldman Sachs, has joined Spring Labs as an
advisor.
The Spring Founding Industry Partners ("SFIP") Program is
comprised of financial services institutions and data furnishers
that have partnered with Spring Labs to collaborate on the
research, development, and implementation of the Spring Protocol
prior to its public launch. Program participants are
collectively focused on creating a secure and regulatorily
compliant way to leverage data to solve pressing problems related
to ID verification and fraud within their respective sectors.
"As an ever-increasing amount of financial transactions move
online, new types of mission-critical fraud and ID verification
solutions based on information sharing must be developed,"
stated Noah Breslow, CEO of OnDeck
Capital. "We believe the team at Spring Labs has the right
background to galvanize industry leaders around the creation of a
new and innovative network."
The Spring Protocol differs from existing data exchange
solutions in that it enables network participants to exchange
information without sharing underlying data, effectively
decoupling data ownership from data value. This unprecedented
approach to information sharing leverages advanced cryptography and
blockchain technology. The Spring Protocol mitigates the need
for data aggregators and allows network participants to exchange
information securely and anonymously in a peer-to-peer
fashion.
For financial institutions, the Spring Protocol is intended to
reduce the risk of data breaches by eliminating the need for data
replication. The Protocol also should cut the cost of issuing
financial products by reducing intermediation costs in data
sourcing and by allowing institutions to gain access to new types
of valuable data that were too competitively-sensitive to share
through existing channels.
For consumers, the Spring Protocol should reduce the likelihood
your data is compromised as part of a hack, by reducing the
replication of data as part of standard ID verification and fraud
mitigation processes, effectively improving transparency and
security for consumers. "Thin File" or "Credit Invisible"
consumers might also benefit greatly from the Spring Protocol, as
improved security means that broader array of institutions are
willing to share identification data to build the profiles of
underrepresented consumers in the global credit ecosystem.
"We are extremely excited about the initial partners and this is
an incredible opportunity to expand the development of the Spring
Network," says John Sun, President
and Chief Product Officer of Spring Labs. "We have plans to include
other verticals in the near future, and look forward to announcing
those partnerships in the coming months."
About SoFi
SoFi helps people achieve financial
independence to realize their ambitions. Our products for
borrowing, saving, spending, investing, and protecting give our
more than half a million members fast access to tools to get their
money right. SoFi membership comes with the key essentials for
getting ahead, including career advisors and connection to a
thriving community of like-minded, ambitious people. For more
information, visit SoFi.com.
About OnDeck Capital
OnDeck (NYSE: ONDK) is the
proven leader in transparent and responsible online lending to
small business. Founded in 2006, the company pioneered the use
of data analytics and digital technology to make real-time lending
decisions and deliver capital rapidly to small businesses
online. Today, OnDeck offers a wide range of term loans
and lines of credit customized for the needs of small business
owners. OnDeck has provided over $10
billion in loans to customers in 700 different industries
across the United States,
Canada and Australia.
About Avant
Based in Chicago, Illinois, Avant is one of the
fastest-growing companies in the thriving fintech sector. Avant's
mission is to lower the barriers and costs of borrowing for
consumers, which it does through its industry-leading digital
lending platform. Avant also makes its technology platform, Amount,
available to banks and other financial institutions that are
looking for an easy and customizable way to offer digital lending
services to consumers. Avant has secured more than $4 billion in funding and facilitated more than
$5 billion in loans to 600,000 people
worldwide since the company was founded in 2012. In 2015, Avant was
named to Forbes America's Most
Promising Companies list as well as Forbes list of Next
Billion Dollar Startups. For more information, visit
www.avant.com.
About Green Sky
GreenSky, Inc. (NASDAQ: GSKY) is a
leading technology company that powers commerce at the point of
sale. GreenSky's platform is powered by a proprietary technology
infrastructure that delivers stability, speed, scalability and
security and that facilitates merchant sales, while reducing the
friction, and improving the economics, associated with a consumer
making a purchase and a bank extending financing for that
purchase.
About Funding Circle
Funding Circle
(www.fundingcircle.com) is a global small business loans platform,
matching small businesses who want to borrow with investors who
want to lend in the UK, US, Germany and the
Netherlands. Since launching in 2010, investors across
Funding Circle's geographies – including more than 85,000 retail
investors, banks, asset management companies, insurance companies,
government-backed entities and funds – have lent over £5.6 billion
to more than 56,000 businesses globally.
About BlueVine
BlueVine provides flexible working
capital financing to small and medium-sized businesses, giving them
quick access to funds needed to purchase inventory, cover expenses,
or expand operations. A fintech pioneer, BlueVine developed a
fully-online cloud-based platform for invoice factoring,
revolutionizing the 4,000-year old financing system that allows
businesses to receive cash advances on outstanding invoices.
BlueVine also offers FlexCredit, business line of credit financing
based on 6-month and 12-month payment terms. Based in
Redwood City, Calif., BlueVine has
raised $273 million in equity and
debt funding and is funded by Lightspeed Venture Partners, 83NORTH,
Correlation Ventures, Citi Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Rakuten
Fintech Fund, and other private investors.
About Fundation
Fundation Group LLC is a credit solutions provider focused on the
small business market nationally. Fundation is a leader in
providing technology and application processing services to support
more than 25 super regional, regional and community banks.
Fundation's solutions enable its financial services clients to
develop a digital lending capability, provide a great customer
experience, drive cost efficiency into their small business lending
program, and maximize the number of customers they can serve.
Fundation's services range from simple referral partnerships to
customized, integrated private labeled lending programs. The
Company also partners with a wide array of organizations that serve
the small business market in various capacities to deliver credit
products to the business community nationwide. For more
information, please visit www.fundation.com.
About Upgrade
Upgrade is a consumer credit platform that combines access to
affordable credit with credit monitoring and education tools to
help consumers better understand their credit and unlock their
credit potential. Upgrade employs over 300 team members and is
headquartered in San Francisco,
California, with an operations center in Phoenix, Arizona and technology centers in
Chicago, Illinois and Montreal, Canada. Upgrade does not facilitate
loans to residents of Connecticut,
Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont and West
Virginia. All loans originated through the Upgrade platform
are issued by WebBank, Member FDIC. More information is available
at: https://www.upgrade.com.
About Fundbox
Fundbox is a leading technology platform focused on disrupting the
$21 trillion B2B commerce market by
building the world's first AI-enabled business capital platform
designed to accelerate B2B commerce. With Fundbox, sellers (of all
sizes) can quickly increase average order volumes (AOV) and improve
close rates by offering more competitive net terms and payment
plans to their SMB buyers. With heavy investments in machine
learning and the ability to accurately assess credit risk in a
matter of minutes, Fundbox is reimaging B2B credit and payments
products in new category-defining ways.
About Better Mortgage
Launched in 2016, Better.com is a full stack mortgage lender
digitizing every step of the home financing process to make
homeownership more affordable and accessible. Backed by
Kleiner Perkins, Goldman Sachs, and
Pinebrook, Better is focused on customer advocacy, putting
consumers back in control of the most important financial decision
of their lives. Recently named Best Mortgage Lender for Customer
Service by Nerdwallet, Better has an intuitive online platform,
complemented by non-commissioned staff that guide customers through
the process, starting with how much house they can afford or how
much they can save through to close, completely jargon-free with
airtight certainty and the best rate possible. For more
information, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
About Spring Labs
Spring Labs (Springcoin Inc.) is a
technology company building the Spring Protocol, a blockchain-based
network that enables network participants to exchange valuable
information without sharing underlying source data. The
initial use case for the Spring Protocol will facilitate the
exchange of identity, fraud, and risk information among financial
institutions to create a more efficient, transparent, and secure
ecosystem for consumer financial data than the one that exists
today. Spring Labs was founded in 2017 and has offices in
Chicago & Los Angeles. To learn more, visit
SpringLabs.com.
View original
content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sixteen-leading-global-fintechs-join-spring-labs-founding-industry-program-300780378.html
SOURCE Spring Labs