Figure Technologies, Homebridge end merger plans

Figure Technologies and mortgage banker Homebridge Financial Services have nixed their planned merger, citing delays in completing this transaction.

The firms will maintain a partnership for blockchain integrations and expansion of Figure’s home equity line of credit offerings, the fintech company’s CEO and co-founder Mike Cagney said in a message published Friday. The merger was announced last August, days after Figure closed on a $200 million Series D financing round.

“Due to the delays in closing coupled with continued momentum in other parts of our lending, payments and marketplace businesses, we have concluded with the Homebridge team that the merger will not go forward,” Cagney wrote.

Representatives for both Figure and Homebridge didn’t respond to requests for comment Tuesday morning.

Homebridge is a privately held, $25-billion-a-year originator with more than 180 retail branches and two third-party origination units, according to the August announcement. The lender will work with Figure in deploying a new version of the fintech’s correspondent home equity line of credit product for the wholesale market and integrating with the lien and eNote registry system that is touted as an alternative to MERS databases.

Figure last month said it recorded its sixth-consecutive record month of demand for HELOCs, a countercyclical product that consumers turn to when mortgage rates rise, the firm’s chief operating officer told National Mortgage News. The fintech originated more than $200 million in HELOC volume in April, and said 15% of its volume is through correspondent lending.

The firm also services all of its loans on blockchain, a technology lauded for its increased security and efficiency. It announced a partnership with Sagent, a mortgage servicing technology company, last August. Figure in March sold digital mortgages to asset management giant Apollo through the Provenance Blockchain, which it helped create. Two mortgage fintechs in April also announced they would allow customers to register their loans with Figure’s blockchain registry known as DART, or Digital Asset Registration Technologies.

Cagney founded Figure in 2018 after departing SoFi Technologies, another fintech he created, the prior year. The company offers refinances, personal loans and says it will soon offer a crypto-backed mortgage for loans up to $20 million. Figure was valued at $3.2 billion at the time of the merger announcement.

The fintech is also in the midst of its application to become a bank holding company, after state regulators dropped a lawsuit challenging the charter application in January.