Insights from former CEO of Visa USA Carl Pascarella: Why I chose to invest in LoanPro

Last year, LoanPro welcomed Carl Pascarella to their board of directors. He is best known for playing a key role in Visa’s growth and evolution in the U.S. market, serving as their CEO from 1993 to 2005. Pascarella currently serves as an Executive Advisor at TPG Capital, a global private equity firm, and sits on the board of several corporations.

Carl will be speaking at Money 20/20 with Rhett Roberts, CEO of LoanPro. In this article, originally posted on Fintech Nexus, he shares his reasoning for investing in LoanPro and joining its board of directors.

This is a revolutionary time for the card industry.

I felt that same way twenty years ago, when Visa was expanding into debit and began envisioning ourselves as not just a card company, but an electronic payments company. New technologies introduced opportunities for new products, serving customers that we had never reached before. Across the industry today, I see similar rapid growth in technology coupled with a drive to deliver a better product. Nowhere is this more palpable than at LoanPro.

LoanPro’s mission is to provide the platform to innovate the future of finance. Those are big words, but I continue to witness the reality of this statement, since the day I received a call from Rhett Roberts (Co-Founder and CEO at LoanPro) until now as I see their modern credit platform in action.

The credit industry is booming, with decreased interchange in debit offerings creating a need for financial organizations to diversify by adding credit offerings to their product mix. The average interchange rate is approximately 2% for credit card offerings while only 0.5% for debit card offerings. Thus, we’re seeing brands with a solid debit card customer base are diversifying by launching credit products. However, with increased supply creates a need to truly differentiate products and the credit industry is getting crowded. Previously, the credit card companies with the highest marketing budgets and best rewards programs have won, creating an environment that is ripe for disruption.

Innovation and disruption is at the core of LoanPro’s ethos. Everything that they do is focused on delighting their customers. Around the time that I joined their board of directors, LoanPro launched their patent-pending credit innovation called transaction level credit™, which has since been rolled out to all of their clients. It’s a powerful tool for card personalization which empowers organizations to charge unique interest rates at the transaction level. This enables you to launch a credit card with a unique interest rate per merchant, spend category, geolocation, spend velocity, date, or any other variable.

This focus on innovation is emblematic of the way LoanPro is pushing the industry forward. To be the platform of choice for major, forward-thinking companies, LoanPro knows that they have to be constantly innovating their own system, expanding the possibilities for their customers and the entire industry.

That spirit of innovation is evident throughout the company. In everything they build, I’ve noticed three considerations that are front and center and primary reasons why I invested in LoanPro. Namely those are configurability, scalability, and compliance.

• Every platform will tout its configurability as a talking point, but when you dig into what each is capable of doing, LoanPro comes out ahead. They’re able to support virtually any class of credit and lending offering—installment or line of credit, consumer or business. And regardless of the type of product you offer, they’ve built out countless points where you can customize and fine-tune the financial mechanics, servicing processes, and other details. LoanPro has built (and continues to build) a platform that supports innovators.
• To provide any fintech company real credibility, they need to be truly proven in the market. LoanPro is the trusted and scalable platform for over 600 of the industry’s top innovators, fit for companies who grow frustrated with their rigid legacy systems. There are very few platforms that have both the technical scalability to handle millions of accounts while also providing you with a platform to truly innovate and differentiate. LoanPro is one such platform, and that scalability is bound to attract both the major players already in the industry and the disruptive newcomers who emerge over the next decade.
• To run a company successfully, ethics and compliance must be woven into the fabric or the organization. The past few years have emphasized this point as we’ve witnessed increased consent orders, fines, and other enforcement actions. LoanPro builds their platform in a way that a company’s standards can easily be communicated and enforced through the software itself, giving companies complete control over their compliance to decrease risk.

These three aspects of LoanPro’s platform combined with the massive market opportunity convinced me that LoanPro’s goals and actions align with my own vision for how the financial world ought to be. LoanPro felt the same way, and over the past year we’ve worked together, moving step by step toward that shared vision.

As a board member, I’ve been able to contribute my own experience and expertise, on everything from product offerings and the regulatory environment to their own internal operations. Over the past two years, the company has tripled in size, allowing them to learn from mine and the other board members’ experiences, avoiding many of the pitfalls we’ve seen at other companies in this stage. In a period marked by layoffs and bankruptcies throughout the industry, LoanPro has managed to expand their profitability, grow their customer base, and expand their product. This is evidenced by the recent announcement of LoanPro and Visa DPS entering a strategic partnership to provide a next generation end-to-end credit platform.

LoanPro is positioned for success. Not only can their customers expect continued stability and reliability from LoanPro’s product and team, but they can also look forward to continual innovation in the platform. My position gives me the opportunity to advise them as they expand and move forward, particularly when it comes to their card offerings, and I’m optimistic that the future is bright for the entire industry as we innovate the future of finance.

Carl Pascarella

To hear more from Carl Pascarella, see us at Money 20/20, where LoanPro CEO Rhett Roberts will interview him in the speaking session Leading the payment revolution: Lessons from former Visa CEO.