TrustFund

TrustFund helps people achieve financial wellness and avoid the use of predatory lenders.

This financial technology acts as a digital bank. Customers receive a debit card and access to TrustFund’s mobile platform.

By using the card to make purchases, and using the app to track their spending habits, customers build a TrustFund score. This is an alternative to the FICO score that often overlooks important financial metrics.

As customers build their score, they unlock access to financial benefits. These include emergency loans, auto refinancing options, and in-house credit products. In doing so, customers can better address financial emergencies, and avoid relying on high-interest loans.

TrustFund was created for the 50% of Americans that are unable to deal with an unexpected $500 expense. It also benefits the 78% of Americans that live paycheck-to-paycheck, and the more than 100 million that have less than desirable credit.

For these people, the options to deal with financial emergencies are limited to friends and family, or predatory lenders.

11% of U.S. adults say they’ve taken out a payday loan in the past two years. Perhaps surprisingly, there are more payday lending storefronts in America than McDonald’s and Starbucks locations combined. Payday lending is a $46 billion industry.

The problem is that the average APR of a payday loan in the U.S. is 391%. Applying that interest rate to a two-week loan of $500, the borrower is required to pay $575 just fourteen days later.

If they need to roll over the loan to have more time to pay it back, the interest accumulates. Rolling over this loan for just three months means the borrower will quickly owe approximately $1,000 on their original $500 loan.

Credit cards often have significantly lower interest rates. However, for those with less than desirable credit, these resources may not be available to them. Furthermore, improving their FICO score — a metric used by credit card companies to determine credit limits, interest rates, and loan approvals — is difficult.

FICO scores often fall quickly, rise slowly, and are a measure of how a person handles debt, not how they handle their finances. In other words, a FICO score is a reasonable barometer for predicting a person’s ability to pay off a 30-year mortgage, not a small four-month loan of $500.

TrustFund’s score, in contrast, offers its customers a clean slate. This score measures their financial health in real-time, and takes into account their day-to-day financial habits as opposed to potential future risk.

Here’s how the process works:

Users sign up for an account with TrustFund, and set up direct deposit so their paychecks go onto a pre-loaded debit card. Each time they use the card, they’ll start to build their TrustFund score. At the same time, TrustFund earns a 1% processing fee for each transaction.

In addition to the debit card, users take advantage of the company’s mobile app, which provides financial tools and planning strategies.

The app’s paycheck-to-paycheck tool enables users to stay on top of daily and weekly expenses, and prepare for unexpected, but plausible, problems. (For example, car troubles or medical bills.)

These resources also help users increase their score, opening the door to more affordable lending alternatives and opportunities to save money.

In September 2019, TrustFund launched a Minimum Viable Product version of its platform. Shortly after, it secured partnerships with 10 non-profit organizations in the Dallas, Texas area. These organizations cater to those who often struggle financially, and include Services of Hope, The Women’s Center, and Jewish Family Service of Greater Dallas.

In December 2019, TrustFund began marketing its platform and is approaching 1,000 users. The company is raising capital to hire new team members and further develop its product.

Team Background

Nathan Pinto - Co-Founder

Nathan is serial entrepreneur.

After studying Finance at the University of Texas, he moved to India and started a company building self-sustaining toilets.

He then returned to Dallas and joined a venture capital fund to gain experience about managing a startup.

More recently, he founded a software company developing educational products for schools. He also founded Farm2Cook, a meat company that reached a $2 million annual run rate and sold products to restaurants and via a home delivery service.

Frank Santoni - Co-Founder

Before starting TrustFund, Frank was Senior Director of Research and Innovation at a social service agency in Fort Worth, Texas.

Prior to that, he was CEO of Social Venture Partners, a group of more than 100 philanthropists dedicated to improving the lives of at-risk children. Earlier in his career, he founded Fidelium Group, a consulting firm advising social mission-driven organizations.

Frank earned a Bachelor’s degree in Government and a Master’s degree in Theology from Notre Dame.

Co-Investors