SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Lenny, a pioneer microlending mobile application focused on Millennials, announced a commercial agreement with Dwolla today, a modern bank transfer platform and network. Leveraging Dwolla's new white label API, Lenny's micro-lending platform will offer users a fully-branded transfer, account creation, and verification experience while reducing the costs, exposures, and time to market typically associated with creating and supporting an in-house payment operation.
"We are very pleased to be working with Dwolla," said Joe Bayen, CEO and founder at Lenny. "Our goal is to provide a seamless and highly secure platform for our users’ transactions, and Dwolla definitely meets all of our safety and security requirements. Additionally, Dwolla's recent blessing from Wall Street and various government organizations, further validates our decision.”
Lenny recently closed a seed funding round which will allow the company to offer instant microloans to Millennials. The company plans to initially focus on providing microloans to students by assessing their creditworthiness using a multitude of criteria, chiefly their educational background, with a strong focus on GPA. The company also positions itself as a personal finance education platform, dedicated to regularly posting credit score improvement tips and guidance on their blog. (www.getlenny.com/blog)
“Lenny is on a great path to make it easier for college students to start building their credit history in a responsible way," said CEO and founder of Dwolla, Ben Milne. “Dwolla's end-to-end payment system allows Lenny to put their resources behind their core business: building a credit history for people who need one.”
Lenny is currently available at select universities with plans of rolling out nationwide in 2016. The application will initially be available exclusively on Apple's iOS platform.
About Lenny - Lenny offers microloans to students using their grade point average as a core approval criteria. Lenny also provides a plethora of tools and guidance to help millennials improve their credit scores. Lenny offers initial loans of up to $500 with quarterly balance increases of up to $300. The company also offers special rates and discounts from participating partners. Lenny is a licensed lender in the State of California. Learn more at https://www.getlenny.com.
About Dwolla - Dwolla provides a real-time communication and interoperability network and platform for bank transfers. Using its real-time ledger, directory, and settlement infrastructure, the network connects to financial institutions to move U.S. dollars through its own instant bank transfer rails, FiSync, or existing systems, like ACH or wire. Its branded or white label APIs allow individuals, businesses, software platforms, financial institutions, federal agencies—anyone in the U.S.—to simply and securely leverage Dwolla's capabilities and the U.S. payment system to send and receive funds, without the transaction fees and heavy lifting of traditional systems. Dwolla has raised over $30 million from CME Group, Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, et al and is based in Des Moines, Iowa. Learn more at https://www.dwolla.com.