‘Relationship lending’ fintech seeks to raise $1.5m

Credi, a fintech that provides a way for family members, friends and businesses to “formalise” loans, is seeking a fresh injection of capital.

The fintech will soon launch an equity crowdfunding campaign via Equitise to raise between $500,000 and $1.5 million over a month at $1 per ordinary share.

Founded in 2017 by the Western Australian director of FinTech Australia, Tim Dean, Credi allows known parties to formalise loans, whether it’s small loans between friends, parents providing deposits for a house, investors seed funding a new business, businesses lending to directors, or self-managed superannuation funds lending to third parties.

An entirely digital platform, Credi seeks to “reduce the risk and fear associated with informal lending” by helping users negotiate the terms of a loan and manage loan repayments through automated direct debits, email and SMS reminders, while also providing the flexibility for loans to be amended or be repaid early.

“Credi was created to make it easy to receive financial support from friends and family as an alternative to expensive, if available, other forms of credit such as bank loans, often with potentially financially crippling fees,” Mr Dean said.

“Credi was inspired as a result of my own experience and allowed me as a parent to navigate my adult children away from high-cost credit and teach them how to repay and manage a loan responsibility and efficiently.”

According to Credi’s data, the average interest rate charged by those lending to known parties is “just over 3 per cent p.a.”

Since its launch in April 2017, the Perth-based fintech has reportedly managed loans of more than $100 million from 5,200 users across 26 countries.

“With Australians still digesting the findings of the royal commission on banking and financial services, the spotlight is on high-cost credit and irresponsible lending. Now more than ever, Credi has a competitive advantage to really create some groundswell around what we’ve created,” Mr Dean said.

[Related: Neobank raises $2.6m in crowdfunding campaign]