As the late, great Ben Parker once said, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” It’s an admittedly overused quote but it is the most appropriate way to describe LA’s newest app,
.
Launched as an invitation-only app earlier this week, Lenny is a peer-to-peer payment app with a huge twist — they issue loans.
Currently targeting the college student demographic, Lenny is an licensed financial lender. that provides micro-loans to its users within the app. The micro-loans function as a digital credit card, accumulating 10 percent interest if not paid within the 30 day cycle. The amount of credit available to the user depends on over 1,000 personal data points including credit history, GPA, major and university.
An average initial credit line for a first-time user lands around $500. Students can increase their credit by $300 every semester by managing their credit line responsibly.
One of the company’s founders, Joe Bayen, admitted the inspiration for Lenny came from his poor credit card history during college. His aspiration is to provide students with an easy, low-risk way to enter the credit world:
“I thought this would be a good way to introduce lending within the peer-to-peer payment industry,“ said Bayen. “You are essentially paying back your friends and building your credit score at the same time.”
With the widespread millennial acceptance of apps like Venmo, Bayen believes this is the next logical step for payment apps. Lenny will focus their marketing efforts at college students in 2016 (including an advertising push around Spring Break) before targeting older millennials in 2017. Eventually the app will expand beyond micro-loans with loans as large as $25,000 and even financing mortgages.
Bayen and his co-founder Francesco Matteini began working on the app a year ago and have teamed up with Dwolla to process their mobile payments. The company currently has five employees in their Santa Monica office as well as 12 more employees around the world.
One thing is for certain — if the app catches on, the phrase "I owe Lenny $200" will sound way less mob-related than it used to.
