It can be challenging for developers of fintech apps to integrate repayment, balance transfer, and bill pay functionality. Devs often have to deal with a patchwork of brittle screen-scraping APIs to extract data from users’ financial institutions — or worse, tools to process mounds of physical checks and paperwork.
Three friends and entrepreneurs — Jose Bethancourt, Marco del Carmen, and Mit Shah — told TechCrunch that the blockers can be dealbreaking, particularly for smaller fintech teams. To attempt to overcome them — and help others to do the same — the trio launched Method, a platform that powers debt and debt repayment features in fintech applications.
“Jose and Marco experienced firsthand the challenges of financial account connectivity while building their first company, GradJoy, a Y Combinator-backed startup,” Shah told TechCrunch. “GradJoy aimed to simplify student loan management, but Jose and Marco quickly realized the limitations of existing account connectivity systems.”
Method works by leveraging consumer credit access protections enacted into law as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. By tapping into identity verification data from credit bureaus and telecom companies and combining it with data from core banking systems, Method can aggregate a person’s debts and execute balance transfers, bill pay, and payoffs and on their behalf.
Fintech developers can build the tech into their apps using Method’s API. All a user of those apps has to do is provide their phone number.
Method, which emerged from stealth in 2021, now supports over 30 million account connections for 4 million users, and has facilitated over $500 million in liability repayments to date.
Method handles a lot of sensitive data, which might give some users pause. But Shah claims that Method collects only “minimum user information” and doesn’t sell data to third parties. The company is also planning to launch a portal where users will be able to log in to manage data they’ve share with Method customers.
Method competes with big vendors like Plaid, MX, Spinwheel, and Dwolla. But many of these rely on systems that require users to enter their financial account credentials, Shah said, which he argued can be a point of friction.
“Method is supporting millions of Americans on their financial journeys while helping lenders and fintechs like SoFi, Aven, Happy Money, and Figure increase conversion with better user experience and engagement,” Shah continued. “Consumers do not have to re-authenticate multiple times for different accounts, and once Method retrieves a consumer’s liabilities, they can pay those liabilities using Method’s payment rail.”
Method recently added support for credit cards; it underpins Bilt’s credit card linking tool, which lets Bilt customers connect their cards to receive points on eligible purchases. In the near future, Method plans to deepen its banking relationships and roll out credit card network integrations for retail and travel customers.
“Many shoppers aren’t comfortable storing their card details or are unwilling to take the time,” Shah said. “Method presents guests and repeat shoppers with their current credit card wallet — including each and every active credit card they hold — just with the entry of their name and phone number. With Method’s solution, the merchant has greater influence over the checkout experience and can better understand customers across channels and cards with the full wallet visibility.”
To fund this product growth, 35-employee, Austin-based Method raised a $41.5 million Series B round led by Emergence Capital with participation from Avra Capital, Samsung Next, Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, and Ardent. The new cash brings the company’s total raised to ~$60 million.
