Whether you’re trying to pay down your credit card debt or create a rainy day fund, new startup Divvy hopes to be the online source you turn to for help.
The new online, community lending service offers money pools that people can contribute money to each week to build a common fund — and then take turns receiving the pot.
The goal is to create an alternative way for people to borrow money that doesn’t involve high interest rates, payday loans or debt.
“Having worked in financial services all my life, I’ve seen how high interest loans from payday lenders and even credit cards can trap people in a cycle of debt, simply because they needed an advance on money to pay their rent or children’s education expenses,” said Kevin Devaney, CEO and founder.
Here’s how it works: in a $500 money pool, 10 people contribute $50 a week for 10 weeks into the pool. In the first week, two participants are randomly selected to get $250 from the pool. These people will then get another $250 in week 10.
In the second week, two different people will receive $250. These people will receive their second installment in week 9. And so on.
Before joining a pool, participants link their bank account to Divvy to make automatic withdrawals and deposits. To ensure users are protected, Divvy uses SynapsePay, a third-party platform that connects the service to your account with bank level security.
To participate in a pool, there’s also a one-time flat fee that individuals pay to Divvy.
If a person in the pool stops paying, he or she will be removed from the pool and unable to collect any future payments from it. To make sure that other people in the pool can still collect their full payments, Divvy steps in and covers any payments that were due to the person removed from the pool.
Users can join more than one Divvy pool at the same time, as long as you have enough in the bank to pay your weekly contributions for all of the pools you’re in.
Devaney said he had the idea for the startup when he heard that money pools are a common practice in other cultures.
“I heard about these rosters, which were rotating savings accounts in communities around Latin America,” Devaney said. “Groups of 10 or 100 local people would get together and agree to pay a certain amount each week to a pot and randomly pick a person to receive the pot each week. I thought that it was a really good idea and wondered how something like this hadn’t caught on in the U.S.”
To bring community lending into the 21st century, Devaney brought the service online. It’s early days for Divvy, which went live in fall 2017, but Devaney said he hopes to see the startup’s users grow organically over the next year.
“I have a lot of faith in the idea and the product,” Devaney said. “It’s a great way to help a lot of people.”
