Small-Cap Firm’s AI Technology Finds a Large Niche with the ‘Underbanked’

Source: Streetwise Reports   06/29/2021

Marble Financial is aggressively expanding its groundbreaking programs for the financially underserved, with plans for hockey stick growth from the current 20,000 users to 100,000 by year-end, and 1 million users in 2022.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans, 63%, say they are living paycheck to paycheck, according to CNBC, and 53% of Canadians are in the same situation, BDO Canada reports. Because of their poor credit, many people find themselves excluded from traditional financial products and are at the mercy of predatory lenders. Small-cap Marble Financial Inc. (MRBL:CSE; MRBLF:OTC; 2V0:FSE) brings together artificial intelligence (AI), data science, machine learning and fintech to provide a personal financial fitness platform and associated products and services to the underbanked in assisting them to achieve their financial goals. The company also has a unique program that allows lenders to see beyond a credit score number.

“We are finding that people are very much paying attention to their debt and credit because they know that they have to better manage their financial fitness through these uncertain times,” Mike Marrandino, Marble’s executive chairman, told Streetwise Reports.

“We tell all that are interested in the Marble financial fitness solution to ‘know before you go’ with respect to your credit; otherwise, it can be too late to prevent disappointment from both the vendor and the consumer. A potentially lose-lose result where the consumer walks away not being able to obtain credit and make a significant purchase, and the credit supplier not being able to monetize a willing consumer,” he explained.

Through the MyMarble platform, a consumer not only learns what his or her credit score is, but he or she is also provided with prescriptive recommendations on how to improve it. “Our machine learning has digested millions of data points provided by the national credit reporting entities, the likes of TransUnion, Equifax and Experion, and thus, our artificial intelligence software has the ability to understand the algorithms that these reporting agencies use to determine the consumers credit score. From there, our software can provide the prescriptive recommendations to improve each consumer’s credit score,” Marrandino said. “To the best of our knowledge, our proprietary Marble Platform is unique in the financial fitness industry.”

The consumer also has the option with the software to target specific debt identified on their credit report with unallocated funds to maximize their credit score each month.

In April, Marble acquired Inverite Verification Inc., a banking verification artificial intelligence company, that connects with 275 financial institutions and calculates a risk score based on banking verification requests and loan behaviors. “Inverite provides key financial insights for the lender, over and above what their credit report identifies in order for the lender to determine the credit worthiness for each application. This determination and data insight is provided to the lender in seconds by Inverite,” Marradino explained.

Recently Marble announced that Inverite achieved the widely recognized auditing standard developed by the American Institute of Certified Public accountants (AICPA) SOC 2 Type I compliance that verifies that Inveritie’s activities meet all relevant trust principles, which have been confirmed through an in-depth audit. This certification enables Inverite to offer its products to mainstream financial institutions in both Canada and the United States.

“It’s all part of the adjudication process when creditors want to find out about the KYC—know your customer—and confirm all their financial information,” Marrandino said. “Our platform now is very powerful, not only to help consumers build and rebuild and monitor their credit, but also for the creditors that want to lend money to these consumers; they use our platform to make sure that they are a good credit risk. Our business revenue model now covers B2C, B2B and B2B2C.”

On June 9, Inverite announced it has entered into a data verification agreement with one of the largest alternative lenders in the Power Sports financing industry. “This is a huge vote of confidence in the data verification that Inverite can offer a lender in the automation of adjudicating credit decisions,” Marrandino said.

Marble generates its revenue from multiple sources. As a “Software as a Service” (SaaS), Marble receives monthly subscription fees from consumers who register on the platform to help them with their financial fitness. “We also have built an API (Application Programing Interface), which enables Marble to white label its platform out to industry and receives both license and subscription fees. Our white label offering is garnering interest from large corporations’ human resources departments, as financial stress is a key contributor to loss of productivity in the workplace. For individuals that qualify for our Fast-Track loan product, we offer a loan to pay out their government regulated insolvency, known as a Consumer Proposal. Marble generates interest revenue from these qualified participants. Lastly, the company generates referral revenue from industry after it has improved the financial fitness of the consumer and they are now ready and qualify for the item they originally wanted to purchase,” he said.

“Our AI recommends that some of our consumers should acquire a secured credit card in order improve their financial fitness; we are in discussions with several vendors of this product, including a top-tier bank that sees this potential partnership with Marble as a means to re-acquire consumers once they have improved their financial fitness to their acceptable threshold, a win-win-win scenario for all, Marble, the consumer and the bank,” Marrandino explained. “Statistics show that the financially underserved and underbanked sector of the economy no longer can be ignored by the large financial institutions and they are looking for creative methods to acquire consumers that have fallen of the radar of mainstream financial services.”

Marble recently announced it has added a Guaranteed Investment Certificate savings loan product to qualified participants on its platform. Offered through Jenson Graf Risk Management Inc., it is called “the Secured Future Credit Plan” on the Marble platform. “This financial fitness product enables qualified participants to qualify for a 24 or 36 month loan between $2k-$3k. The consumer receives interest on this amount that is registered with a financial institution and in return the consumer makes monthly payments that are reported to the credit reporting agencies. At the end of the term, the consumer has improved their credit and has savings that can be used at their discretion, again another win-win for both the consumer and Marble,” Marrandino explained. The Marble Platform originates and adjudicates the qualified applicant and is paid a referral fee from Jenson Graf.

The company foresees rapid growth. “We’re just starting out; we’ve got about 20,000 users on our platform; we’re growing month by month. Our goal is to get to 100,000 users by around YE this year, and 1 million users in 2022. We are launching in the U.S. later this year,” Marrandino stated. “We are on track to be cash-flow positive by the end of the year.”

The company’s continued growth plan is forging new partnerships. “Our platform is agnostic and can operate globally in countries where credit agencies like Equifax, TransUnion and Experian credit rating agencies operate,” Marrandino stated.

Investor Bradley Scharfe, chairman and CEO of the Scharfe Group of Companies, noted that for him it is important to pay attention to what is going on in the fintech sector: Intuit’s $8.1 billion purchase of Credit Karma , followed by MasterCard’s acquisition of Finicity for a $1.1 billion valuation. “I see Marble as a significant opportunity because market leaders in the fintech space are seeing the potential of the aggregation of both credit and banking data. Marble is uniquely positioned to aggregate both credit and banking data with two major distinguishing capabilities: using artificial intelligence and personal recommendations to improve personal financial health, and its focus on the underbanked, whereas other industry players are focused on the segment of the population that is banked.”

“The underbanked segment of the North American population has been significantly increasing over the past few years, and COVID has created an even bigger business opportunity for Marble, as well as to do considerable social good,” Scharfe added.

Marble currently has approximately 77 million shares outstanding and around 95 million fully diluted; management, insiders and strategic investors own around 50%.

Disclosure:
1) Patrice Fusillo conducted this interview for Streetwise Reports LLC and provides services to Streetwise Reports as an employee. She owns, or members of her immediate household or family own, securities of the following companies mentioned in this article: None. She is, or members of her immediate household or family are, paid by the following companies mentioned in this article: None.
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