The CEO of LendingClub said his company is hesitant about embracing cryptocurrency, focusing instead on a bank acquisition and more traditional financial products.
“Look, the customer demand is there, but my view — our view — is if you’ve got $15,000 in credit-card debt, the thing you should do with your next $500 is not buy a speculative asset,” Chief Executive Officer Scott Sanborn said in an interview with Bloomberg News published Wednesday (March 2).
“We recognize we could be leaving some consumer demand on the table,” added Sanborn.
Sanborn has been charting a new path for the company following its $185 million acquisition last year of Radius Bancorp Inc.
LendingClub has been expanding its offerings, such as high-yield savings accounts and certificates of deposit, which doesn’t leave a lot of space to embark on a crypto initiative, Sanborn said.
“I don’t want to get distracted,” he said. “Back half of the year, into next year, we’ll be focusing on the mobile-banking experience.”
Read more: LendingClub Gets OK To Acquire Radius Bancorp
“We’re still digesting the bank,” Sanborn said when asked about future mergers and acquisitions. “We have a really good use of our capital right now, which is putting it in the balance sheet. I know what that return is — it’s really high — and it’s really straightforward. But as we fully mature into that, we’re certainly going to be generating a lot of capital.”
See also: 70% of Millennials Live Paycheck to Paycheck
PYMNTS collaborated with LendingClub recently on New Reality Check: The Paycheck-To-Paycheck Report, a monthly series on people living paycheck to paycheck based on surveys of more than 36,000 consumes throughout the U.S.
The most recent installment of the survey found a stark gap in savings between consumers who live paycheck to paycheck with issues paying their bills each month compared those living paycheck to paycheck but who don’t struggle with their bills.
Consumers’ average savings range from $1,158 to $2,765 for those who live paycheck to paycheck with difficulty, and $3,362 to $7,961 people in the second category.
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