Prudential Financial is dedicating $10 million to fintech oriented towards solving intransigent financial and social inequality in the U.S.
Prudential’s funding is part of a $60 million total dedicated to the Financial Solutions Lab, an initiative launched in June by the Financial Health Network and JPMorgan Chase to support fintechs developing solutions for underserved communities.
The Financial Solutions Lab is a 10-year initiative that focuses on technology solutions to support populations facing financial health challenges, including people of color, older adults, women and people with disabilities.
“Two-thirds of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck, and 50% of them don’t have $500 to handle an emergency,” said Sarah Keh, Prudential’s vice president of corporate social responsibility. “Since the outbreak, how many of those people have filed for unemployment? The lines are increasing, and it’s increasing the visibility of a lot of issues around inequities and inequality along racial and gender lines.”
The funding supports three main areas of programming at the Financial Solutions Lab: the Accelerator, a fintech accelerator focused on financial health, now in its sixth year; the Nonprofit-Fintech Exchange, a meeting place for nonprofits and fintechs to collaborate and share insight; and the Collaborative, which focuses on identifying and exploring new solutions not yet available on the market that may address unmet financial health needs.
Simultaneously with Prudential’s announcement, the Financial Solutions Lab announced a four-company fintech accelerator cohort, its sixth, that will be supported with the new funding.
Climb Credit offers payment and financing options for students to attend career-advancing education programs, which are verified for positive career outcomes, with loan programs offering economic mobility, even to the unemployed. Climb recently created a hardship forbearance program for its users in light of recent financial disruptions.
Edquity administers universities’ emergency cash grants and provides social service referrals for college students facing financial insecurity. Edquity has recently adapted to support managing CARES Act relief dollars on behalf of its college partners.
Finli handles invoicing, tuition collection and digital presences for neighborhood schools and academic enrichment programs, serving the small businesses within the education sector.
Summer is a student loan repayment optimization tool that identifies and enrolls users in the best repayment and forgiveness programs for their situation. It has recently had to update its product to account for the large number of newly unemployed borrowers and to adjust for rules changes under the CARES Act.
“We know that two billion adults are unbanked or underbanked in the world, and banks don’t always provide appropriate solutions for people to build their savings and prepare for retirement,” said Keh. “A huge consumer market has been left marginalized. What fintechs can bring to bear will help eliminate some market inefficiencies and will be able to reach the consumer where they’re at. The current financial system fails a lot of people because it doesn’t go direct to consumers. Fintech can increase the penetration and offer cheaper, easy-to-access services that address some of these inequalities.”