What happens when a millennial microlending app teams up with the white-label API of a digital payment network?

Courtesy of a new commercial agreement between Lenny and Dwolla, we will soon find out.

“Our goal is to provide a seamless and highly secure platform for our users’ transactions,” said Lenny founder and CEO Joe Bayen. “And Dwolla definitely meets all of our safety and security requirements.”

Jordan Lampe, Dwolla’s director of communications and policy affairs,
demonstrated FiSync at FinovateSpring 2015.

Lenny focuses on providing microloans (up to $500 initially) to college-age students, using their educational background in general and their GPAs in specific, to help establish creditworthiness. Lenny is available at a limited number of universities in the U.S. now and plans to go nationwide with its iOS app in 2016.

Lenny will take advantage of Dwolla’s new white-label API to provide branded transfer, account creation, and verification services. Dwolla CEO Ben Milne said that his company’s platform would allow Lenny “to put their resources behind their core business: building a credit history for people who need one.”

News of the partnership with Lenny comes just a week after Dwolla announced it would power P2P money transfers for Swedish payment processor, Seamless. In October, Dwolla inked a deal with the CME Group, bringing on-demand payment-capability to the exchange’s clearing and settlement operations. And in September, Dwolla teamed up with Comenity Capital Bank to add a new credit payment feature to its platform.

Founded in 2008 and based in Des Moines, Iowa, Dwolla has raised more than $32 million in funding. The company demonstrated its FiSynch technology at FinovateSpring 2015.