LemFi Acquires Pillar to Support Credit Services for Immigrants

LemFi has acquired Pillar to support its development of specialized credit services and cards to designed specifically for immigrants, starting with those in the U.K.

This acquisition adds Pillar’s proprietary credit scoring technology, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) credit license and track record of growth to LemFi’s financial services platform for immigrants that recently integrated credit with its launch of LemFi Credit in private beta, the companies said in a Monday (June 16) press release emailed to PYMNTS.

In addition, Pillar co-founders Ashutosh Bhatt and Adam Lewis will join the LemFi team, according to the release.

“With this acquisition, we plan to offer credit cards to customers, starting with the U.K. and roll out the full suite of LemFi Credit features publicly,” LemFi Co-founder and CEO Ridwan Olalere said in the release.

Olalere added that “credit forms a critical part of our vision of building a full-stack financial service for immigrants everywhere.”

The LemFi platform started with payments and remittances and now enables users to open multi-currency accounts and send and receive money globally, according to the release.

Its first credit offering LemFi Credit, gained more than 8,000 users in the first six weeks of its private beta, the release said. LemFi Credit offers a virtual card that can be used instantly via Apple Pay or Google Pay and plans to add physical Visa cards when the service is rolled out to the public later this year.

The addition of Pillar’s technology will enable these cards to recognize international credit histories, use non-traditional data points to evaluate creditworthiness, offer graduated credit building, and combine LemFi’s cross-border payment capabilities with credit building, per the release.

Bhatt said in the release that by joining LemFi, the Pillar co-founders aim to help improve immigrants’ access to bank accounts and credit cards.

“I’m excited for the impact we will have together with LemFi to increase reach by 10X and build truly global access to credit,” Bhatt said.

LemFi and Visa Cross-Border Solutions announced in April 2024 that they expanded their partnership on cross-border payments globally, enabling LemFi to extend its services into new markets around the globe.

In January, LemFi announced that it raised $53 million in a Series B funding round to “propel us closer to our mission of innovating international payments.”