You’ve probably heard of fintech — a mash-up of the words financial and technology — in the past couple of years as new start-ups and platforms, such as Buy Now, Pay Later offerings, have become more popular. But even I had to look up what proptech was when I read this article, and after reading it, I think it’s worth sharing and making sure everyone in the accounts receivable management space is aware of it, because it looks like the technology is going to impact how debts are collected.
Proptech is a mash-up of property and technology and speaks to innovations being made in how people pay for their mortgages and rent. How it applies to this particular article is that a company called Marlette Holdings purchased a proptech company called Till. You might know Marlette better by the name its uses for its consumer finance operation — Best Egg. And Till specializes in letting renters break up their monthly payments into smaller payments during the month. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist much to see how technology like that can be applied to helping consumers manage their unpaid debts.
Till allows renters to create customized payment schedules that align with their payroll and cashflow scheduled in order to help them make rent payments every month. The platform claims that owners using the system have seen as much as a 50% increase in on-time payments being made and are spending 70% less time managing delinquent accounts.
“The Till acquisition is an example of how we can leverage our strong financial position and capital markets expertise to scale innovative products,” said Andrew Deringer, Chief Capital Officer at Best Egg, in a statemen. “We will continue to look for strategic opportunities that create value for our customers as well as our shareholders.”
While it appears there are no immediate plans to integrate Till’s technology into Best Egg’s lending platform, one should easily be able to see the day where consumers can borrow money and then set up flexible payment schedules based on their cash flow situations.
