LemFi, a financial services platform catering to immigrant communities, has acquired UK fintech Pillar to enhance its credit offerings. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Founded in 2021 by Opay veterans Ridwan Olalere and Rian Cochran, LemFi originally focused on remittances, helping over two million individuals across Europe and North America send money to 20 emerging markets.
After recently integrating credit into its core services, LemFi is expanding its footprint through Pillar, which was created by former Revolut employees Ashutosh Bhatt and Adam Lewis to provide lending products for recently arrived immigrants in the UK.
This acquisition gives LemFi access to Pillar’s proprietary credit scoring technology and FCA credit license, along with the expertise of Bhatt and Lewis, who will join LemFi’s team.
In the UK alone, around five million people are “credit invisible,” facing a significantly higher risk of being excluded from essential financial services like loans, credit cards, and mobile contracts.
Pillar’s innovative credit-scoring model utilizes global credit insights and non-traditional data to assess eligibility, enabling users to establish a financial footprint from the outset.
LemFi’s initial credit offering attracted over 8,000 users just six weeks after its private beta launch, with an 18% week-on-week growth. Customers receive a virtual card that can be used immediately via Apple Pay or Google Pay, with physical Visa cards set to launch later this year as the service becomes publicly available.
Looking ahead, CEO Olalere states, “With this acquisition, we plan to offer credit cards to customers, starting in the UK, and will introduce the full suite of LemFi credit features to the public.”