Ready Life Teams With Figure Pay to Offer Easier Mortgages

Blockchain lending startup Figure Technologies has teamed up with mortgage FinTech Ready Life to launch a mobile app that lets customers get a mortgage without a credit score.

The Ready Pay platform lets customers who pay their rent on time qualify for a mortgage without a credit score review, according to a Thursday (Nov. 10) news release. The app, which is powered by Figure Technologies’ Figure Pay, will be released to a wait list of customers.

“For too long, people who consistently pay their rent on time have been shut out of home ownership,” said Ready Life CEO Ashley D. Bell in the release. “As we make banking and financial services accessible and equitable for all, we are aiming to open homeownership to many more people, providing them a chance at the American dream and fundamentally changing how people view mortgages.”

Launched in September, Figure Pay is a Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) solution that includes a Visa debit card, buy now, pay later (BNPL), and payday advance features. The tool offers two platforms, one focused on banks, and the other for FinTechs, non-banks and retailers.

“With Figure Pay, we were able to develop a solution to what we saw as a gap in banking and payments,” said Figure Pay General Manager Tony Morosini at the time. “Our solution has been battle tested via our own direct-to-consumer banking application Figure Pay, and this experience led us to build what we knew the market needed.”

A few weeks after Figure Pay’s debut, Figure Technologies CEO Mike Cagney spoke with PYMNTS’ Karen Webster about the company’s work with Ready Life, which he said is using credit as a foundation for building sticky banking relationships.

Ready Life, he said, “does not need a mortgage technology platform — they need a capital markets partner that can originate the loans.”

Loans are underwritten with the help the data intelligence collected from the borrower’s use of the Ready Life debit card.

As Cagney told Webster, the Ready Life/Figure Technologies collaboration is an illustration of what’s to come: “The ultimate democratization of banking is going to be underpinned by blockchain — and the movement to a decentralized, rather than centralized, construct.”