SalaryFinance, the financial employee benefit service, has raised $6.1 million from FinTech venture builder Brightbridge Ventures to increase its customer acquisition and expand its operations team.
SalaryFinance offers businesses in the UK a financial employee benefit that allows their staff to consolidate their personal debts and repay them via a low interest, fixed-rate loan. Loan repayments are taken directly from the employee’s payroll, rather than direct debit, reducing the cost and interest rate to around one third of the market average.
The service is completely free to employers and allows their staff to reduce their personal debts more quickly. The rate of the loan does not change based on an individual’s income or credit score.
SalaryFinance was founded by former MD of Google UK Dan Cobley, former banking consultant Asesh Sarkar and entrepreneur Daniel Shakhani.
Asesh Sarkar, CEO of SalaryFinance, commented: “Our goal is to save hard working people in the UK £4 billion per annum in unnecessary interest repayments, improving their financial health and their productivity at work. Since launch earlier this year, the demand for SalaryFinance from employers has been phenomenal. The capital from Brightbridge Ventures will allow us to service the demand and accelerate the numbers of employers we onboard and the reach we have across the UK.”
Warren Mead, Global Co-Head of FinTech at KPMG, added: “There are deep pockets of credit worthy individuals who struggle to get access to finance or are mis-priced by traditional credit scoring. SalaryFinance has an imaginative solution to this problem. With the funding announced today and the experience of the management team they are definitely one to watch as a potential winner of the future.”
Dan Cobley, CEO of Brightbridge Ventures, added: “We are delighted by the level of employer and employee enthusiasm we’ve seen for SalaryFinance. This has given us the confidence to follow our initial seed investment with a major financial commitment. This funding will help bring the amazing SalaryFinance benefit to working people across the country.”
Addressing a Brightbridge Ventures event on FinTech on Thursday evening, Danny Alexander, former Chief Secretary, will say: “The ordinary consumer is still not well enough served by traditional financial services. Access to core products, such as personal lending, is highly regressive. The best deals, the best services, are only often available to higher earners. SalaryFinance is a great example of a FinTech company with a social purpose, which has the potential to make millions of our citizens better off.”