Wednesday, July 15, 2015

ZestFinance Launches Unsecured Personal Loans

Los Angeles-based Zest Finance, one of the area's growing number of financial technology (fintech) startups, said today that it ha launched a new product, to offer up unsecured, personal loans to middle class Americans. ZestFinance said its new product--Basix--uses its technology to better evaluate creditworthiness of borrowers, and allows consumers who otherwise wouldn't be able to tap into traditional credit systems, and who wouldn't qualify for a band loan, to gain access to credit. The new loans will be available for three year terms, and will feature fixed interest rates of between 26% to 36%, with fixed monthly payments. ZestFinance is led by Douglas Merrill. The company said it is also offering up its credit decisioning technology behind the product available to other lenders. ZestFinance is venture backed by Peter Thiel, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Matrix Partners, Kensington Capital Holdings, and Eastward Capital Partners.

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