Cross River Bank, a tech-driven financial services organization that offers core infrastructure and embedded financial solutions, has announced the acquisition of Betterfin, a transformative financial platform that enables small business owners to access various financial products and solutions, capital markets data, and effectively manage lending and cash flow processes.
Following the closing, Betterfin is “wholly owned by Cross River’s parent company, CRB Group, Inc,” the announcement noted while adding that financial details of the transaction are “not being disclosed.”
Gilles Gade, Founder, President and CEO of Cross River, stated:
“For over a decade, Cross River has redefined financial services for fintech partners, communities and individuals around the globe. With the addition of Betterfin, its team of professionals led by Eric Griego, its technology stack and market intelligence, the combination of our core infrastructure and small business offerings will become another powerful tool of our growth engine.”
Acquiring Betterfin aims to further Cross River’s goal of offering access to financial services via its extensive, API-enabled platform with regulatory compliance. Cross River has an established track record in “proving innovative, scalable solutions for the SMB market as demonstrated through its leading participation in the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
With Betterfin’s tech, Cross River will be “transforming and re-imagining the traditional SBA loan process experience by digitizing the entire flow and building out a more seamless, efficient, and technology-focused platform,” the announcement noted.
Established in 2017 by Eric Griego and Dan Gabrieli, Betterfin is a Y Combinator-backed Fintech firm that assists small business owners with managing financing and credit. Betterfin has developed a lending-as-a-service solution for financial institutions to provide commercial loans.
It has created tools that allow the firm to seamlessly support end-to-end loan workflows for their clients including “a flexible front-end framework and UX, proprietary AI-based lending logic, and a back-end loan management system.”
Additionally, Betterfin has created a dashboard for small businesses, offering them with an all-in-one financing management platform, “access to financial products, capital markets data, cashflow management tools and personalized, automated insights so that they can make informed financial decisions.” The Betterfin team will “join Cross River’s growing team of nearly 700 global employees,” the update revealed.
By integrating Betterfin’s talent and tech stack into its operations, Cross River is “well-positioned to become one of the leading SBA 7(a) originators, further expanding its comprehensive suite of offerings.”
The update also mentioned that Betterfin’s software will “fully digitize Cross River’s loan application process, loan origination and underwriting, broker submission, and hand-off to closing and servicing partners within the compliance framework it is known for.”