VCs expect a surge in startups offering lower-interest mortgages and other loans now that the Fed has lowered interest rates

When the US Fed cut interest rates by half a percentage point last week, it was excellent news for enterprise capitalists backing one particularly beleaguered class of startups: fintechs, especially those that depend on loans to run their businesses.

These firms include corporate bank card providers reminiscent of Ramp or Coast, which offer cards to fleet owners. Card issuers earn cash from interchange rates, that are the transaction fees charged to merchants. “But they have to hand over the money when they get the loan,” said Sheel Mohnot, co-founder and general partner at Better Tomorrow Ventures, a fintech company.

“The terms of this loan have just improved.”

case study is Affirm, a buy now, pay later (BNPL) company founded by famous PayPal mafia member Max Levchin. While Affirm is not any longer a startup — it went public in 2021 — as interest costs have risen, the company’s share price has fallen from around $162 in October to below $50 per share as of February 2022.

BNPLs pay merchants the full amount upfront; they then allow the customer to pay for the item in several installments, often without interest. Many BNPLs generate revenue primarily by charging sellers a fee for every transaction processed on their platform, relatively than interest on the purchase. Their business model didn’t allow them to pass on the drastically higher costs they incurred.

“BNPL banks were making rapid profits when interest rates were zero,” Mohnot said.

Affirm competes with many BNPL startups. For example, Klarna is a player that has been expected to go public for years but it surely still is not ready in 2024, its CEO told CNBC last month. Some BNPL startups didn’t survive in any respect, reminiscent of ZestMoney, which shut down in December. Meanwhile, other lending fintechs have also gone out of business on account of high interest rates, reminiscent of the business-building bank card Fundid.

While it could seem counterintuitive, lower rates are also good for fintechs offering loans. Auto loan refinancer Caribou, for instance, falls into this segment, predicts Chuckie Reddy, partner and head of growth investing at QED Investors. Caribou offers loans with terms starting from one to 2 years.

“Their whole business is based on being able to move you from a higher rate to a lower rate,” he said. Now that Caribou’s financing costs are lower, they need to have the opportunity to scale back the fees they charge borrowers.

GoodLeap, a provider of solar panel loans, and Kiavi, a lender specializing in fix-and-flip loans for home investors, are other short-term lenders that will profit. Like Caribou, they may potentially pass on a few of their interest savings to customers, resulting in a surge in lending volume, said Rudy Yang, fintech analyst at PitchBook.

No sector needs to be helped by lower interest rates as much as the fintech startups that are taking the mortgage industry by storm. However, it might take a while for this recently devastated space to recuperate. While the Fed’s cut was large, interest rates are still high in comparison with the long ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) era that preceded it, when Fed rates were near zero. The latest Fed interest rates are currently in the range of 4.5% to five%. So the loans available to consumers will still be several percentage points above the Fed’s base rate.

If the Fed continues to lower interest rates, as many investors hope it’ll, many individuals who bought homes during the period of high interest rates will likely be on the lookout for higher deals.

“The refinancing wave will be huge, but not tomorrow or in the next few months,” said Kamran Ansari, enterprise partner at VC firm Headline. “It may not be worth refinancing at half a percent, but if rates drop by a percent or a percent and a half, we will start to see a flood of refinances from everyone who has been forced to take the plunge on a mortgage at higher rates over the last few years.”

Ansari predicts a significant rebound for mortgage fintechs like Rocket Mortage and Better.comafter poor results in recent years.

Next, VC investor dollars will almost actually flow. Ansari also predicted a surge in latest mortgage tech startups if interest rates turn into more attractive.

“Any time you see a space that has been dormant for four or five years, there are probably opportunities to reinvent and update the algorithms, and now you can get into AI-centric underwriting,” he said.