Flexiti founder and chief executive officer Peter Kalen says the company’s next priority is absorbing the company’s “monstrous level of growth.”SUPPLIED
The financing firm was recently acquired and landed a large contract to serve two of Canada’s largest furniture retailers
The past year has been extraordinarily busy for Flexiti, a leader in point-of-sale financing and payment solutions. Not only was it recently acquired by a U.S. lender, but the Toronto-based company also landed a large contract for two of Canada’s largest furniture retailers.
In March, Flexiti was purchased by CURO Group Holdings Corp., a Wichita, Kan.-based company, which will help Flexiti serve a broad range of customers and bring its call centre in-house. In June, the company signed a deal with Leon’s Furniture Ltd. — the retailer behind Leon’s and The Brick brands — to handle its retail credit card business. The Leon’s deal will be one of the main drivers of Flexiti’s growth over the next few years, says company founder and chief executive officer Peter Kalen.
“They are the behemoth in the industry,” he says of the two brands.
Leon’s and The Brick are also pioneers of the point-of-sale, buy-now-pay-later market in Canada. “They alone represent $800-million of annual volume per year,” he says.
With the addition of The Brick and Leon’s businesses, Flexiti is projected to grow from approximately $300-million in annual originations to $1.5-billion by the end of 2022. Scaling the infrastructure to support that will be “a huge accomplishment,” Mr. Kalen says. However, he says the company has experience growing at this pace given that it was only at $8-million in loans in 2016.
“The priority for this year is really to scale to absorb this monstrous level of growth,” he says. “We can’t hire fast enough.” Flexiti currently has about 200 employees and will add about 400 to its new call centre plus another 50 to its head office in the coming months.
CURO’s acquisition of Flexiti will also bring new expertise to the lender, which offers its FlexitiCard at its merchant partners including Wayfair, Staples, Mobilia, Sleep Country Canada, Birks, People’s Jewellers and others. The card offers zero-per-cent interest* financing options either on deferred payments or equal payment plans.
Flexiti focuses on being an omnichannel operator, which means customers can apply and be approved in minutes (subject to credit approval), either in person or at the online checkout cart of a Flexiti retailer.
CURO has deep experience in the non-prime space, which is financing for people with a lower credit score while Flexiti operates in the prime space: “It’s a great opportunity for us to work with them to really enhance our capabilities, and add more clients,” Mr. Kalen says. “A company like CURO has become really good at assessing whether that person is a good credit risk or not. That’s going to further fuel our growth, approving more customers and helping our retail partners grow their sales.”
Another driver of Flexiti’s growth is its own direct-to-consumer credit card offer. In November, the lender started allowing Canadians to apply for a FlexitiCard on its Flexiti.com website, instead of only through its retail partners.
Since its launch in December 2020, Mr. Kalen says Flexiti has issued thousands of FlexitiCards through the direct-to-consumer online application. Flexiti.com is currently the third-largest source of new FlexitiCard applications, Mr. Kalen says.
Mr. Kalen also sees an opportunity for Flexiti to do more marketing with its retail partners, given that 20 percent of FlexitiCard holders have used their cards at other merchants in Flexiti’s network of retailers, known as the Flexiti Network.
“That’s pure incremental volume,” Mr. Kalen says. “That’s something we see as a really big opportunity along with repeat purchases.”
* Subject to the Flexiti Cardholder Agreement. Interest applies if the promotion expires without full payment.
Advertising feature produced by Globe Content Studio with Flexiti. The Globe’s editorial department was not involved.