Affirm Holdings, which provides installment loans to online shoppers, is seeking to raise up to $934.8 million in an initial public offering, signaling last year’s record listings run is carrying over to 2021.
Firms such as Afterpay that offer financing to shoppers have been enjoying rapid growth. But their model is under scrutiny from regulators, being mimicked by credit card lenders and faces heightened risks in a downturn.
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Manuel Alvarez, who became commissioner of the Department of Business Oversight on Monday, is the former general counsel and chief compliance officer at the online lender Affirm.
The upstart lenders have been chipping away at credit cards’ consumer-lending dominance by offering fixed-rate loans with predictable repayment plans. Now the card giants are fighting back.
The deal marks the first time that the retail giant will enable its customers to use fixed-rate loans, rather than credit cards, for big-ticket purchases in its stores and online.