Financeit, a cloud-based point-of-sale platform, has announced a a strategic funding collaboration with Concentra, a Saskatchewan-based finance and trust solutions provider for Canadian credit unions. Concentra boasts $7 billion in assets and over $34 billion in assets under administration.
The collaboration, which is worth an initial $100 million CAD, will allow Toronto-based Financeit to expand its lender community by increasing origination capacity and gaining access to the credit union system, while Concentra can use the partnership to provide credit unions with more strategic investment opportunities that diversify margins.
“The collaboration with Concentra further demonstrates our commitment to give our merchant partners the capital they need to offer flexible monthly payment plans to customers across Canada” says Michael Garrity, founder and CEO of Financeit. “The ability to introduce lending capital to credit unions in Canada will serve to advance sales for business on our platform dedicated to home improvement, retail and vehicle sales.”
This isn’t the first time a FinTech startup has partnered with a larger institution working in the credit union space — in February, Grow Financial began a partnership with British Columbia’s third-largest Credit Union in order to benefit from the established brand awareness these institutions already have.
“Financeit offers a winning nation-wide platform and is a valuable partner to Concentra as we continue to build larger scale relevant solutions for credit unions. Their entrepreneurial spirit and client-centric approach to business is closely aligned with the values held by Concentra and the credit union system,” said Dallas Marce, executive vice president of wholesale finance at Concentra. “Working with Financeit allows Concentra to offer credit unions access to point of sale originated consumer assets outside the credit union system.”