Method

Method provides API-based connectivity to consumer credit and liability accounts — credit cards, student loans, auto loans, personal loans and mortgages — combined with the ability to initiate payments to those accounts. Its stated products span Connect (linking accounts), Data (real-time balances, transactions, due dates, payoff quotes, credit limits and APR ranges, plus alerts on balance changes, new accounts and delinquency across a claimed 300+ data points), and Pay (loan payoff, balance transfer and bill pay). A companion "Instant Link"/Card Connect capability lets consumers link existing credit cards using only a phone number and consent.

The technical premise is that users are verified and their accounts located via multi-factor identity verification rather than by collecting login credentials. TechCrunch reported that Method leverages consumer credit access protections in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, drawing identity data from credit bureaus (e.g., Equifax) and wireless carriers (e.g., T-Mobile) and combining it with real-time data from financial institutions' core banking systems, allowing both read and write access to liabilities. Method states it stays out of the flow of funds while handling money movement end to end, and positions itself against credit-report-derived data as a real-time, source-of-record alternative.

Coverage claims vary by page and date: the company site cites 20,000+ financial institutions for connection and 15,000+ for enriched liability data, while the 2023 TechCrunch article cited more than 60,000 U.S. institutions. Reported scale metrics include 55M+ users connected, 20K+ institutions and $5B+ processed on the about page, versus 30 million password-less connections for nearly 4 million Americans and over $500 million in payments cited in the Series B post as growth since the 2023 round."; "founding_story": "Method's founders previously built GradJoy, a student-loan repayment app that went through Y Combinator in 2019. While trying to onboard students, they found liability connectivity unworkable: some loan servicers (e.g., Great Lakes) required user login credentials and brittle backend workarounds, others were reachable only through connectivity solutions that broke frequently, and some were inaccessible entirely — requiring users to send data by spreadsheet. GradJoy also could not schedule payments on users' behalf. Co-founders Jose Bethancourt and Marco del Carmen concluded there was an opportunity to offer developers an embeddable API for debt repayment, and started Method in May 2021 as turnkey infrastructure.

Business model

B2B infrastructure: Method sells API access to consumer-facing businesses — lenders, banks, fintechs and personal finance apps — that embed liability data retrieval and payment initiation into their own products. Method handles data security, privacy compliance and money movement while remaining outside the flow of funds.

Sources do not specify pricing. TechCrunch reported annual recurring revenue of approximately $2.25 million as of January 2023, indicating a recurring/subscription-style revenue base from customer accounts.

Traction

Company materials cite 20K+ financial institutions connected, 55M+ users connected and $5B+ processed. The Series B post reports 30 million password-less account connections for nearly 4 million Americans and over $500 million in payments since the 2023 round. Customer-specific figures include 500K+ cards linked via Bilt, a 25% increase in utilization at Aven, coverage rising to 96-97% at Happy Money, $1B+ in loan payoffs via SoFi Direct Pay, and a 10x increase in Loan Dashboard users at Vola with an average 31-point credit score improvement.

Latest developments

Recent announcements include Method for Commerce (extending into one-click checkout), Payment Instruments for direct-to-creditor payoffs, Portfolio Intelligence for monitoring a book of business, and fraud reduction work in commerce. The $42M Series B led by Emergence Capital is the most recent disclosed financing.