Funding Circle (LSE: FCH), which claims to be a leading online lending platform for small business borrowers, recently announced that Kanthi Muthiah has joined the company as U.S. Chief Product Officer.
Kanthi, a former FICO, PayPal, and JP Morgan executive, will “support overall product strategy and innovation at Funding Circle U.S. and will report to U.S. Managing Director, Steve Allocca.”
Kanthi will play an integral role in “advancing the capabilities of Funding Circle’s current product offerings while continuing to develop solutions that meet the ever-changing financing needs of today’s small businesses.”
Muthiah said:
“I am excited to join Funding Circle, especially during a time where accessing capital is of paramount importance to small and medium-sized businesses. I’m looking forward to working with the team to continue developing innovative financing solutions and to increase Funding Circle’s impact across the U.S., expanding access to capital for more small businesses.”
Most recently, Kanthi was Vice President of Technical Product Management at FICO, a leading analytics software company “where he was responsible for global technical product management of FICO platforms.”
He previously served “as PayPal’s Global Chief Product Officer, where he advanced lending products and capabilities to enhance value for PayPal Merchants with a focus on democratizing financial services and increasing accessibility to working capital for small and medium-sized businesses.”
Steve Allocca, U.S. Managing Director, said:
“We are thrilled Kanthi has joined Funding Circle as U.S. Chief Product Officer where he brings more than a decade of experience in commercial lending and credit risk management. Kanthi will play an instrumental role in helping transform our business and technology platform to support multiple products and services that meet the needs of our small business customers.”
Funding Circle is now “operational in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. In 2022, the Company launched two Lending as a Service (LaaS) partnerships with Pitney Bowes and DreamSpring.”
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve and Bank for International Settlements also ‘released a study concluding Funding Circle is “increasing access to capital at a lower cost for borrowers who are less likely to receive credit from traditional banks’ and ‘predicting future loan performance more accurately than the conventional method to credit scoring, leading to better loan performance.’”
As noted in the update, Funding Circle claims it is “a leading online small business financing platform for business borrowers.”
Since 2010, Funding Circle originated $4.3 billion “to 42,000 small businesses in the U.S. and $20.2 billion to 135,000 small businesses globally.”
For institutional investors, Funding Circle provides access to “an alternative asset class in an underserved market and delivers robust and attractive returns.”