The US CFPB orders online payday lender LendUp to shutter lending operations after finding it repeatedly lied to and illegally cheated its customers
it has been a long time coming. In other news, anyone looking to buy my shares of LendUp? Rohit Chopra / @chopracfpb : We will be working to provide redress to borrowers cheated by @LendUpCredit through the @CFPB's victims' relief fund. Alex Benjamin / @alexbenjamin__ : @NikMilanovic That's too bad . I remember working with them when they were just getting started . The mission was great in a space that needed to be re invented ... suprised to see it end up this way Nik / @nikmilanovic : Damn this has been a long downward slide https://www.americanbanker.com/ ... Ben Sandofsky / @sandofsky : California has shut down LendUp, a payday lending company with $361 Million in funding from Y Combinator, a16z, and more. Whether it's gig work or loans, it's weird how often “disruption” just means, “Ignore laws that protect the poor.” https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ ... Jason Mikula / @mikulaja : “The order would also impose a $100,000 civil money penalty based on LendUp's demonstrated inability to pay.” aka the company is completely broke. Rohit Chopra / @chopracfpb : But @LendUpCredit turned out to be a repeat offender that harmed consumers again and again, even after multiple CFPB enforcement actions in 2016, 2020, and 2021, including misconduct targeted at members of the military. https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ ... Avi Asher-Schapiro / @aaschapiro : Has the CFPB ever called out VC firms like this before? Striking statement from @chopracfpb: “LendUp was backed by some of the biggest names in VC...we are shuttering the lending operations...for repeatedly lying & illegally cheating its customers.” https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ ... @dancharvey : CFPB blasts VCs in ordering LendUp to stop lending https://www.protocol.com/... https://twitter.com/... Parker / @pt : @hunterwalk @bizcarson Wait until we see crypto crackdowns. 😬 Matt Stoller / @matthewstoller : Google and don't do evil... zzzzz https://twitter.com/...
ReutersKatanga Johnson
Context & Ripple Effects
LendUp's end was five years in the making. Months after raising a $150M Series B in early 2016 and launching its own credit card, the company took a $6.3M refund-and-penalty order for deceptive practices, then split the lending and card businesses apart in 2018 as enforcement continued through 2020 and 2021.
Today's order is the terminus: the CFPB found the lender repeatedly lied to and cheated customers, imposed only a $100,000 penalty because of LendUp's demonstrated inability to pay, and said it will route redress through the agency's victims' relief fund — while publicly criticizing the venture firms that backed the company. Roughly $361 million from investors including Y Combinator and Andreessen Horowitz is now tied up in an ordered shutdown.
First-order effects
LendUp's lending operations must close, cutting off its online payday product for existing customers, who are owed redress via the CFPB's victims' relief fund rather than direct repayment by a solvent company.
Investors holding stakes in the roughly $361M raised — including Y Combinator and Andreessen Horowitz — face near-total loss on the lending business, and the CFPB has named them publicly as backers of a repeat offender.
Second-order effects
Fintech VCs face sharper diligence questions about compliance track records before funding 're-invented' lending startups, since the regulator has explicitly blamed the backers and not just the company.
The 2018 corporate split now looks like insulation for the credit card arm: separating it from the lending operations may determine what, if anything, survives outside the shuttered business.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds — enforcement in 2016, 2020, 2021, then an operational death sentence — repeat-deception fintech lenders shift from paying fines as a cost of doing business to losing the license to operate at all, and investor reputational exposure becomes part of the penalty structure.
The trend: Regulators are escalating from fines against repeat-offender consumer lenders to forced shutdowns, and extending accountability upstream to the venture capital that funded them.
The @CFPB is shuttering the lending operations of @LendUpCredit for repeatedly lying to and illegally cheating its customers. It was a darling of the venture capital world that attracted investment from @Google Ventures, @a16z, @kleinerperkins, and others. https://www.consumerfin…
California has shut down LendUp, a payday lending company with $361 Million in funding from Y Combinator, a16z, and more. Whether it's gig work or loans, it's weird how often “disruption” just means, “Ignore laws that protect the poor.” https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ ...
Apparently part of the @LendUpCredit scam was to falsely claim they would give their customers a break if they took financial literacy classes online. Of course, of course. https://twitter.com/...
Has the CFPB ever called out VC firms like this before? Striking statement from @chopracfpb: “LendUp was backed by some of the biggest names in VC...we are shuttering the lending operations...for repeatedly lying & illegally cheating its customers.” https://www.consumerfinance.go…
The director of the CFPB blasted the VCs who backed LendUp as his agency ordered the fintech to stop making loans. The company will carry on with a neobank operation, Ahead Financials, a spokesperson said. https://www.protocol.com/...
UNPRECEDENTED: @CFPB shuts down a fintech-LendUp-for harming consumers. CBA has long warned about the threat posed by fintechs w/out federal oversight & urged @CFPB to ensure these “banks” uphold the same safety/soundness & consumer protections as America's well-regulated banks. …
Rohit Chopra may be the only regulator in the country who understands that corporations do not have the divine right to exist in perpetuity, especially after committing fraud. https://twitter.com/...
Thanks for protecting consumer @CFPB! Some #fintech purveyors are so busy deploying the next new thing that they don't bother to check if they are operating within the law.... https://twitter.com/...
@NikMilanovic That's too bad . I remember working with them when they were just getting started . The mission was great in a space that needed to be re invented ... suprised to see it end up this way
Per LinkedIn, this LendUp company has 43 employees (but not everyone in the world has LI, I know) And they still had the volume such that they have to provide $40M of remedies to affected consumers, just based on finance charges!
But @LendUpCredit turned out to be a repeat offender that harmed consumers again and again, even after multiple CFPB enforcement actions in 2016, 2020, and 2021, including misconduct targeted at members of the military. https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ ...
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said it ordered LendUp Loans to pay a $100,000 penalty, halt issuing new loans and stop collecting on certain outstanding ones after repeated deceptive marketing and other fair-lending violations https://www.reuters.com/... https://twitter…