Fintech industry pioneers David Johnson, CEO of Vervent (formerly First Associates) and Jon Barlow, CEO of Finitive, have worked on lending deals together for many years. Both of their companies have been instrumental in educating lending platforms on industry best practices.
Vervent has become the industry leader in loan servicing for fintech lenders as well as in a number of lending verticals. Finitive is a fintech platform bringing together institutional investors and non-bank lending platforms (listen to my podcast last month with Jon Barlow). Together, they are quite complementary, with Finitive working on setting up and closing deals while Vervent helps on the back office making sure the loan servicing is set up and running optimally.
Today, they announced they are formalizing their partnership to “further promote collaboration and inclusion within the Fintech industry”. What does this mean exactly? In an email sent by David Johnson yesterday they provide some clues:
There is so much knowledge in this industry. We want to share and use our collective resources and experience to open up alternative lending to new players and opportunities that will enhance our industry. With the combined power of Vervent’s advanced portfolio servicing and Finitive’s network and data expertise in private credit transactions, we can do that.
I reached out to Vervent for more color on exactly what they have planned. What they are going to be doing is focusing on those areas of fintech that are less developed and help industry participants with best practices. The first niche they will be focusing on is solar lending. They will be creating an educational white paper and publishing some case studies. From there they are going to move to the Canadian market and then on to Latin America.
Obviously, the ultimate goal here is for both companies to gain new clients but they also recognize that the more these markets develop the right way the more they will flourish. This will lead to more opportunities for both companies.
My Take
This is a great example of fintech companies working together in a new kind of partnership. These companies are experienced in working on complex deals and have each developed a great deal of domain expertise. They are obviously complementary, as every lender needs investor capital as well as servicing, and they have a lot to gain in bringing their expertise into less developed markets. I am looking forward to seeing how this partnership develops.
Peter Renton is the chairman and co-founder of LendIt Fintech, the world’s first and largest digital media and events company focused on fintech. Peter has been writing about fintech since 2010 and he is the author and creator of the Fintech One-on-One Podcast, the first and longest-running fintech interview series. Peter has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The New York Times, CNBC, CNN, Fortune, NPR, Fox Business News, the Financial Times, and dozens of other publications.