Digital lender LendUp launches a challenger bank
- LendUp has introduced its own challenger bank, Ahead Financials.
- Ahead will provide digital banking and financial education to emerging middle class consumers.
LendUp has unveiled its digital bank, Ahead Financials.
Ahead provides emerging middle class consumers in the U.S and worldwide with banking and financial health services. The LendUp subsidiary will offer a checking account and debit card with no monthly fees along with financial literacy tools to educate consumers on their budgeting habits.
“Borrowing, saving, planning, budgeting and financial education each play an important role in financial health no matter where you fall on the income spectrum,” said LendUp CEO, Anu Shultes. “However there are tens of millions of Americans who have been shut out of the mainstream banking system and therefore do not have a financial partner to help them with these items. And these are not just students, new workers or immigrants, they are hard working individuals with good jobs.”
As of August 2020, around 167 million Americans identified themselves as ‘financially coping’ or ‘financially vulnerable’ in a Financial Health Network report. In the past year, financial health disparities have widened across income and race and have persisted across gender.
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“LendUp and now Ahead were founded to break the cycle of hard-working Americans who are denied access to the system because they have poor credit or no credit,” said Shultes. “Improving financial education, improving credit scores, and improving the financial health of millions of Americans is one part of breaking this cycle. Because our customers have been shut out of the mainstream banking systems, we are creating a banking ecosystem specifically designed for our customers to be set up for success and that can grow with them.”
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