Money Sweetspot breaks the debt cycle. Their financial reset consolidates debt into a single, fair loan and ties financial education to incentives that reduce what customers owe. Social finance innovation with heart.
Why we invested
We know how the cost of living crisis directly and disproportionately impacts whānau from our priority communities. Money Sweetspot’s innovative social finance model is not only proving that you can lend sustainably without exploiting borrowers, but by aiming to lose customers by helping them become debt free. By incentivising financial education, wellbeing, and behaviour change, they’re demonstrating what’s possible when fintech meets social finance.
Our facility was the company’s first introduction to impact debt. We have since enabled a further $6M in capital from our investment partners through a special purpose vehicle to further scale their solutions for whānau in Te Pae ki te Rangi’s priority geographies.
Transaction Summary
IRIS+ is a set of generally-accepted system created by the Global Impact Investment Network (GIIN) to standardise impact metrics and themes.
Persistent personal debt and lack of access to empathetic, behaviorally informed financial tools for vulnerable individuals. Many people experiencing financial hardship are caught in cycles of debt due to punitive financial systems, poor financial literacy, and the psychological toll of financial stress.
Debt consolidation service, freeing up money for whānau experiencing financial stress. Financial literacy through rewards-based mechanism.
Financially vulnerable individuals experiencing debt stress or lacking access to supportive financial services in Aotearoa New Zealand, using Money Sweetspot’s debt consolidation services.
Scale: number of individuals who have their loans refinanced through Money Sweetspot.
Depth: number of individuals who pay off all their debt because of Money Sweetspot’s assistance and financial literacy programme.
Duration: positive impact of paying off debt is immediate but this will have long-term impacts on whānau’s ability to improve social mobility.
Individuals and whānau experiencing financial stress would continue to be in debt, most likely turning to predatory lending schemes which will further exacerbate their financial situation.
Community participation risk: individuals who have their debt refinanced may not engage in financial literacy tools through the company, and they may also not pay off their loan.
Number of financial reset loans provided: capturing the scale of their loanbook.
Regions where resets are provided: Money Sweetspot prioritises our geographical priority areas (Northland and Auckland) for loans provided from our facility and SPV.
Qualitative insights: into how debt consolidation is affecting whānau in the long term.
Measuring What Matters
Impacts of enterprises on people and the planet can be understood across five dimensions, as defined by the Impact Management Project.
