Nickels, an Ann Arbor fintech company that helps banks and credit unions improve their consumers’ credit card health and unlock new revenue streams, has announced the closing of $4 million in seed financing.
The funding will be used to expand the company’s product capabilities, recruit top talent, and accelerate Nickels’ partnerships with banks and credit unions. The round was led by Flyover Capital and Reseda Group, with participation from Detroit Venture Partners and Michigan Rise.
“The U.S. credit card market is incredibly consolidated with just 15 major banks controlling over 90 percent of the $850 billion-plus card market,” says Joseph Gracia, founder and CEO of Nickels. “Our solution helps the other 10,500-plus banks and credit unions support their consumers with whatever credit cards they’re using.
“This improves an important aspect of their consumers’ financial health and creates opportunities for our banking clients to refinance their consumers’ credit card debt, which is a win-win for the bank and their consumers.”
Nickels’ financial wellness solution empowers banks and credit unions to help their consumers overcome credit card debt and build positive habits. It begins with an analysis of anonymized checking account data to identify refinance opportunities within the institutions’ existing consumer base, alongside a marketing toolkit that helps them connect with those consumers to refinance their third-party debt.
Institutions then roll out Credit Card Coach, a white-label web application where consumers link in their third-party credit cards to receive personalized advice about managing payments, controlling spending, and improving credit scores. This third-party card data is fed back to the institution to continually identify consumers who would benefit from refinancing their third-party credit card debt into the institutions’ own loan products.
“We see an opportunity for innovative financial institutions to stand out from their competition by applying technology to support their consumers’ financial health,” says Thad Langford, managing partner at Flyover Capital. “We’re excited by Nickels’ opportunity to help community banks and credit unions continue to play an important role in people’s financial lives.”
