Canada's Purpose Financial acquires CreditGenie in the hot POS credit market

Purpose Financial has agreed to purchase CreditGenie Inc. as payment companies face pressure to offer point of sale financing.

The Toronto-based CreditGenie, which was founded in 2016, provides Canadian small and medium-sized businesses with near real-time credit decisions over a network of about 500 merchants in Canada, where Purpose Financial is also based. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

POS lending has become a hot market in the past year for acquisitions and funding as companies are trying to gain access to a growing trend of consumers seeking alternative credit solutions to fund their in-store and online purchases.

Mastercard recently acquired Austin-based POS lending marketplace, Vyze, Affirm raised $300 million in its latest funding round to fuel its expansion, and rapper Snoop Dogg, invested in Swedish installment lender, Klarna, which is expanding internationally.

In 2018 Square moved into installment lending by offering its small business merchants the ability to extend credit to their customers for in-store and online purchases ranging between $250 and $10,000.

The CreditGenie deal is the third acquisition by Purpose Financial in the last 14 months which included Baking-as-a-Service provider, Ario, and small business financing provider, Thinking Capital.