Buy now, pay later provider Sunbit has raised $310 million from Citi and Ares Management credit funds for a debt warehouse facility. 

The company aims to use the money to deepen its penetration in automotive, dental and health care industries, co-founder and Chief Executive Arad Levertov told Bank Automation News.

“We are in 10,000 car dealership locations out of 17,000,” Levertov said. “We are in 10,000 dental locations and we have the opportunity to accelerate in 20,000 locations this year.” 

The company also aims to grow its Sunbit card offering launched last year, which allows consumers to use the card as a BNPL option or as a credit card, Levertov said. 

The Los Angeles-based company saw its revenue increase 50% year over year in 2023 and aims to continue the momentum in 2024, Levertov said. 

Sunbit has raised $770 million since its inception in 2016 from investors, including Chicago Ventures and Zeev Ventures, according to Crunchbase. 

The BNPL market globally was valued at $30.3 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow to $122 billion by 2030, according to Fortune Business Insights, a market research and analysis company. 

Visa teams up with ServiceNow for disputes solution 

Payments behemoth Visa has entered a five-year agreement with cloud-based enterprise solutions provider ServiceNow to launch a disputes management solution. 

The solution will allow companies to streamline payments disputes and chargebacks using ServiceNow’s AI-driven platform and Visa’s tokenization technology, according to a Jan 21. release. 

ServiceNow is working with Visa to integrate different departments working on a payments dispute to resolve it on a single platform, Vidya Balakrishnan, ServiceNow vice president and general manager of financial services industry, told BAN. 

The solution allows FIs to make quick updates to payments dispute processes and use gen AI features to improve customer intake and agent investigation, the release stated. 

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has 1,500 FI clients, including BMO, Santander Bank, M&T Bank and Lloyds Bank, Balakrishnan told BAN. 

Moody’s selects Numerated for AI-driven LOS 

Moody’s Analytics selected Numerated, a digital business banking platform, to enhance its lending suite solution, allowing it to power front office, process automation and loan operations. 

Numerated will use Moody’s Analytics’ data, analytics and credit assessment capabilities coupled with Numerated digital customer experience to simplify commercial lending, a Jan. 23 release stated. 

“Banks and credit unions can use the full lending suite with … loans across all asset classes, product types and stages of the lending lifecycle quickly, easily and accurately,” Dan O’Malley, co-founder and CEO of Numerated, told BAN. 

The lending suite integrates public and private data sources into the solution to augment the data collected during the lending process, he said. 

“This enhanced solution enables financial institutions to make commercial lending faster and easier,” O’Malley said. “We take much of the manual work out of lending, reducing data re-keying and empowering lenders to spend more time on relationships with their clients.” 

Moody’s also aims to use AI to help bank managers effectively categorize, validate and review documentation for covenants, Jacob Grotta, general manager of banking solutions at Moody’s Analytics, told BAN.  

NCR Atleos picked by Grow Financial Credit Union for ATMs 

Grow Financial Credit Union has selected NCR Atleos, which services ATMs, to install new ATMs and interactive teller machines, according to NCR’s Jan. 23 release. 

NCR will take over distribution, installation, maintenance and cash management of Grow Financials’ ATMs, Steven Nogalo, general manager of North America for NCR, told BAN. 

This will make self-service banking more accessible to members and free significant bandwidth for the credit union employees, Nogalo said.  

The $3.5 billion credit union will also use NCR’s interactive teller machines (ITM) to engage with customers in different ways and provide them with self-service capabilities.  

“ITMs enable financial institutions to extend the hours of branches by providing access to central call centers that offer full customer service for certain transactions that may not be available on an ATM — for example, certain transactions related to mortgages and account openings,” Nogalo said. 

Grow Financial Federal Credit Union has 26 branches across Florida and South Carolina. Installation of new machines will begin next month, Nogalo said. 

Visit Bank Automation News’ Transactions Database, which lists the technology selected or acquired by companies in the financial services industry, with a specific focus on technology that enhances automation.

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