FinTech Focus

Talking to 1998-era loan servers

Last month I tried to build an “autopay sweep” that grabs the user’s highest-APR credit card, pulls the current balance, and pays it down from their neobank wallet — all in a single tap.

Reality check:

Every card issuer has its own ACH routing rabbit hole. One servicer needed a paper payoff letter (!), another timed out behind a 2-factor SMS wall, and one mortgage system wanted a fax number. Three days later — after Plaid for balances, Nacha files for payments, and too many CSVs — I still couldn’t guarantee a same-day payoff.

If you’ve ever stitched balances + payments across the legacy stack, you know the pain.

That’s exactly the slice Method attacks.

Real-time financial account connectivity

Method calls itself the “future of financial connectivity.” Non-technical-friend version: “It’s Plaid for debts — but you can also press ‘Pay’.”

The magic: identity-based auth via phone + DOB. No usernames, no passwords, no account/routing numbers — yet you get both read (balance, APR, due date) and write (push a payment) on 15 000+ institutions.

Under the hood it sits on direct integrations with loan servicers and card processors, streaming updates into a REST API and Webhook bus.

Today the network covers 5M+ end-users and $22B in managed liabilities.

Key Information

🔌 15k+ liability FIs — student loans, auto, mortgage, credit cards, even “Buy Now Pay Later,” all with one phone lookup.

⚡ Write access — one API call moves money and returns real-time confirmation.

🏢 Used by big player like SoFi, Bilt, Upgrade, Figure, Happy Money, 60+ others in production.

🚀 Fuelled by $42M Series B (Jan 2025) led by Emergence + a16z.

The Bottom Line

Method does one thing exceptionally well: turn a phone number into a live debt dashboard with a “Pay” button. For startups where every ReFi or autopay drive gross profit, the fee pays for itself once you migrate a single high-interest card.

Caveats? It’s U.S.-only, pricing isn’t on the site, and VoIP or prepaid numbers sometimes fail the identity match. I also hit a daily ACH cutoff (4:30 pm CST) that pushed settlement into T+2. Workarounds exist — schedule early, cache fallback funding sources — but budget time for edge cases.

If you’re building credit health, consolidation, or embedded lending, spin up their sandbox and see if it knocks days off your roadmap. If your users sit outside the U.S. or your margins can’t absorb per-payment fees, keep scouting.

Try it: https://methodfi.com

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