• Earnest and Nova Credit are partnering to launch International Private Student Loans.
• Earnest is tapping Nova Credit’s Credit Passport to leverage consumer-permissioned, cross-border credit data.
• The solution is currently available to international students from India, Mexico, Canada, and South Korea.

Student loan refinancing site Earnest has teamed up with Nova Credit to launch International Private Student Loans. The new tool enables select international students to access flexible loan options, competitive interest rates, and personalized repayment terms tailored to their needs.

Offered by Earnest, International Private Student Loans will leverage Nova Credit’s Credit Passport solution that taps into consumer-permissioned, cross-border credit data. With Credit Passport, borrowers can share their credit information from their home country when they apply for a loan. Nova Credit will share the borrower’s credit history with Earnest and offer a relevant score corresponding to that history.

“We believe that access to credit should be borderless, and financial barriers should never hinder someone’s pursuit of education or opportunity,” said Nova Credit CEO Misha Esipov. “The U.S. is home to nearly one million international students who not only fill our universities with the brightest minds from around the globe but also bring those lessons to accelerate our economy for generations. By partnering with Earnest, we can provide more students the financial access they need to arrive and thrive.”

International borrowers that are eligible will have access to Earnest’s loans without needing a cosigner on the loan. Currently, the International Private Student Loans product is available to international students from India, Mexico, Canada, and South Korea pursuing a Master in Business Administration, Master of Laws/Juris Doctorate, or Master of Science in Engineering program at select schools. The loans can be used for tuition, housing, living expenses, and other education-related costs.

Nova Credit was founded in 2016 with an aim to extend credit to an entirely new set of potential borrowers– immigrants. In addition to the company’s Credit Passport solution, Nova Credit offers Cash Atlas, a tool that analyzes bank transaction data to provide lenders with a Fair Credit Reporting Act consumer report and generates a borrower risk profile to assess their affordability and ability to pay.

Nova Credit also offers a direct-to-consumer tool that provides new-to-country borrowers access to a marketplace where they can browse and apply for credit cards, phone plans, and loans using their foreign credit history.

San Francisco-based Earnest was founded in 2013 and offers student loans, personal loans, student loan refinancing, and marketplaces for tuition insurance, student credit cards, and home equity lines of credit.

Today’s news isn’t the only development in the international student lending space this month. Last week, global payments platform Flywire announced it had teamed up with Tencent’s fintech arm, Tencent Financial Technology, to help Chinese students pay for education abroad.

Photo by Vasily Koloda on Unsplash

• Consumer loyalty app loyalBe is transferring its user base to consumer rewards and payments app Cheddar.
• The move comes as the Ireland-based company pivots from B2C to B2B.
• Headquartered in Belfast and founded in 2018, loyalBe launched in Dublin in 2021.

“We literally give you free money for buying stuff you were going to buy anyway,” declares the Twitter page of Irish consumer loyalty app, loyalBe. The message is likely to remain the same. But today we learned that the focus has changed. LoyalBe has forged a strategic partnership with consumer rewards and payments app Cheddar. As part of the partnership, loyalBe will transfer its user base to the London-based company as part of its pivot from B2C to B2B.

LoyalBe CEO Cormac Quinn said that the decision to become a B2B business reflected “a thorough evaluation of our market positioning and long-term growth potential.” Quinn added that the pivot will enable the company to pursue more effectively the “democratization of frictionless reward programs in the marketplace.”

LoyalBe customers will receive instructions on how to transfer their rewards to Cheddar via email and in-app notification. The size of loyalBe’s customer base was not available.

LoyalBe was founded in 2018. The company raised $130,000 (£100,000) in seed funding from Techstart Ventures a year later. By 2020, loyalBe had secured a partnership with Visa as part of a strategy to expand beyond its local market in Northern Ireland. More investment followed in 2021. The company locked in more than $948,000 (£725,000) in funding from both Techstart Ventures and new investor Co-Fund NI. Later that year, loyalBe launched in Dublin, the capital of the Republic of Ireland.

“We are delighted to introduce loyalBe in Dublin,” Quinn said when the launch was announced. “This gives local businesses the chance to compete with the larger brands and attract footfall with powerful, data-driven insights and tailored promotions for their top customers.”

Serving small businesses was always a major part of what loyalBe is all about. LoyalBe provides a digital loyalty solution that gives businesses and consumers an alternative to traditional paper loyalty cards. Via a smartphone app and a direct link to the consumer’s bank card, loyalBe’s technology makes the rewards process seamless. LoyalBe also enables merchants to leverage payment data to boost customer engagement and provide more personalized rewards and offers.

What does this mean for the company as a fully B2B enterprise? “We have always been driven by our mission to provide every merchant with a powerful tool to help them attract and retain the best customers,” Quinn said. If nothing else, that effort will benefit from a new focus courtesy of the company’s latest move.

Cheddar CEO Tariq Zaid co-founded the U.K.-based company in 2020. The bank account-powered rewards app enables users to earn up to 35% cashback at major brands.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska

• Corporate card startup Moss has selected GoCardless as its direct debit provider in the U.K.
• The partnership will help Germany-based Moss break further into the U.K. market and will help Moss clients automate their corporate card management.
• Since Moss does not charge late payments, GoCardless will also serve a key role in powering automatic collections of late payments.

U.K.-based direct bank payments company GoCardless has added a new client today. German corporate card startup Moss has selected GoCardless as its direct debit provider in the U.K.

Moss helps its 2,220 small business clients automate administrative tasks, including activities around corporate cards, invoices, approvals, budgeting, and accounting. Leveraging GoCardless’ direct debit technology will help Moss build momentum in the U.K., its third international market.

“Moss is a dynamic European start-up and we’re excited to play a pivotal role in its expansion plans,” said GoCardless VP and General Manager, EMEA Alexandra Chiaramonti.

Today’s partnership will also help Moss with automatic collections of late payments. Additionally, GoCardless’ technology will help Moss clients automate their corporate card management.

“At Moss, our mission is to automate spend management to make month end as seamless as possible for modern finance teams,” said Moss CEO Ante Spittler. “That’s why we’re excited to offer GoCardless for repayments. It removes one more point of friction for our customer, and helps fulfill our ethos of using automation to help SMBs save time and money.”

Moss was founded in 2019 and differentiates itself from other corporate card providers with two factors. First, it does not charge interest on late payments. Second, the company extends businesses a credit limit of up to £2.5 million per month, which is relatively high.

GoCardless, which won Best Enterprise Payments Solution at the 2021 Finovate Awards, was founded in 2011. The U.K.-based company’s technology helps merchants collect recurring and one-off payments from customers via ACH transfers. Businesses can integrate GoCardless’ API to automate payment collection and reconciliation billing for subscription and invoice payments. Among the company’s clients are DocuSign, Survey Monkey, and Klarna.

“By combining the best of bank payments to get paid on time, every time with a relentless focus on saving businesses time and money, GoCardless and Moss can help millions of SMBs across the continent and beyond,” said Chiaramonti.

Photo by Orhan Akbaba