Marcus Richards
A new startup aiming to save people time and money when searching for finance is exciting to announce its official launch. Capital Bean is an online loan connection service – partnering potential borrowers with lenders in just under 5 minutes to find accessible loans across the US.
The service uses data and API with more than 50 lenders allowing for a faster pairing, triggering more than 8,000 data points including income, demographic, time of borrowing, credit status and more.
Customer requests, of loans ranging from $100 to $35,000, are paired together with lenders who are able to offer these almost instantly to the borrower.
Capital Bean operates in a number of US states where payday loans and short-term lending are legal, including those looking for payday loans in California. Such loans where interest rates are above 36% APR are prohibited in 13 US states, including New York, Illinois and Massachusetts.
It must be noted that Capital Bean differs widely from a number of payday lending services on both the high street and online. The service is free for customers, and importantly, the soft-search method used does not leave any footprint on their credit history.
“This was a big focus for us,” explains Richard Allan, co-founder of Capital Bean.
“When building the product, we wanted to emphasize speed and technology to streamline the application, decision and funding process. But above all, allowing all these checks without impacting a customer’s credit score was of vital importance. For those millions of Americans who are shopping around and looking for finance, they may have to do a number of applications before being approved and this is hammering their credit score. So creating a simple pairing service which leaves their credit score clean is a very good proposition.”
The majority of successful loan applications are received by borrowers within a 24 hour period. Smaller loans may even be received within just 15 minutes to an hour since the majority of checks are automated.
“It is true, for small amounts of $300 or $500, these are often funded in a few hours or minutes,” continues Allan.
“But for larger amounts of $5,000 or $10,000, these typically undergo more stringent checks and require copies of pay stubs or bank statements and once approved, are usually completed within 24 to 48 hours.”
