Figure Plans IPO for Blockchain-Based Lending Platform

Figure Technology Solutions says it is preparing to go public.

The company, which employs blockchain technology for home loans and offers cryptocurrency-backed loans, announced Monday (Aug. 4) that it had filed confidentially for an initial public offering (IPO) with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

“The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined. The offering is subject to market and other conditions, as well as the completion of the SEC’s review process,” the company said in a news release.

Bloomberg News had reported in 2023 that the company was preparing for an IPO after its lending division recorded a record $900 million in quarterly volume.

The company’s new IPO plans are happening amid a rebound in digital asset lending, as PYMNTS reported last month.

A July 26 report on the topic by the Financial Times (FT) points to the example of San Francisco lender Divine Research, which had made roughly 30,000 unbacked short-term loans since December, teaming with OpenAI’s Sam Altman’s iris-scanning company World to identify borrowers.

“We’re loaning to average folks like high school teachers, fruit vendors … basically anyone with access to the internet can get access to our funds,” Divine’s founder Diego Estevez said in an interview with the FT. “This is microfinance on steroids.”

That report added that Divine offers loans of under $1,000 worth of Circle’s stablecoin USDC to cash-strapped customers, most of whom are underserved by “traditional institutions,” as the company puts it.

Writing about the crypto lending space early this summer, PYMNTS pointed to an April report from data center infrastructure and digital assets company Galaxy, which estimated that the crypto lending market, including crypto collateral debt, had reached $36.5 billion by the end of last year.

“That’s down significantly from a peak of more than $64.4 billion in 2021, as several lenders had gone out of business,” PYMNTS wrote. “But in the current environment, where the runway is being built via legislation and regulatory rollbacks to bring cryptos more fully into banking, the lending activity is poised to accelerate.”

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in March issued a letter that revoked earlier guidelines on crypto and paved a path for banks and lenders to permit digital holdings to be part of secured lending activity.