Young Entrepreneur Launches Fintech Startup to Target the US

Daniel Tannenbaum, 32, worked in consumer finance for over 10 years including giant-lender Wonga.com, set up the business in lockdown, taking 18 months to prepare and finally launched the business this year.

“I started Pheabs during lockdown when I finally had some time to plan and prepare a startup of this size.”

“Finding affordable short term loans is hard for any individual, especially for those with bad credit and I did a lot of research into the US market, including the market size and regulation. The size of the US is truly remarkable and makes the UK seem small in comparison. It's quite astounding really,” he explains.

“Pheabs is a software that connects your enquiry to the lender who is most likely to approve you, taking into account over 8,000 data points including your age, income, credit history, location, loan amount and more. It is a purely online business and proposition, there are no storefronts or windows.”

“We have partnered with over 100 lenders across the US, including credit unions, banks, private lenders and apps. The process to sign up all the partners and connect to them via an API was the biggest hurdle, but we finally got there and launched earlier this year.”

“Pheabs.com is very technology-driven. Customers can submit their applications in under 5 minutes and get an instant quote provisionally on the screen. For smaller amounts, customers can receive funds in 15 minutes or 1 hour, although the average customer will be fully funded within 24 hours or the next business day.”

“I have drawn on over 10 years of experience working with other well-known UK lenders and have used these learnings when launching across the pond. The regulation in the UK is very, very strict, so the quality and level of digital marketing are very high on this side and we are quite far ahead of the US in this respect.”

“With a lot of testing in the first few months, Pheabs attracted more than 70,000 applications in August, which was one almost every 10 seconds, with the majority coming from California and Texas, with most people looking for instalment loans.”

“The next year is very exciting indeed as we look to expand our volumes. But getting the customer the best loan offers and rates is the most important to us and always will be. Perfecting our underwriting process is our top priority.”