progressa and Alpine Credits Announce Canadian Partnership

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - March 3, 2016) - progressa™, Canada's fastest growing financial technology company focused on helping non-prime and near-prime Canadians seeking to improve their financial health, announced today that it has partnered with Alpine Credits to bring its online lending platform to the industry leading Alpine Credits network of companies.

Following a successful $11.4 million Series A round, progressa is moving quickly to expand their lending offering to new channels as they begin to execute on an aggressive growth strategy. By partnering with Alpine Credits, progressa products will now be offered alongside one of Canada's oldest and most well-known non-bank mortgage brands. Alpine Credits, long synonymous with helping Canadians when banks won't, will now offer progressa's advanced proprietary lending technology to its customers while expanding its suite of financial products.

"This new partnership continues a recent trend in Canada that has seen traditional financial institutions teaming up with FinTech startups," said progressa CEO Ali Pourdad. "This is a great opportunity to align ourselves with a brand that Canadians know they can turn to when the banks say 'no' while at the same time we can help Alpine to stay ahead of the curve on the technology side."

Lending startups like progressa have been making major in-roads recently by offering borrowers a simpler and more transparent loan application experience, moving the process almost entirely online and mobile. This is consistent with what many Canadians have come to expect when signing up for a new product, but what traditional financial institutions have been unable or unwilling to deliver. With advanced data science and analytics, progressa is also able to better evaluate credit risk and provide loans where traditional institutions could not.

For their part, established institutions like Alpine Credits are looking to strategic FinTech partnerships as a way to ensure that their customers enjoy the most current customer experience without having to leave the brand they trust.

As Alpine Credits Vice President, Arif Mulji adds, "Alpine Credits is one of Canada's most trusted brands and we are excited to be working with a progressive lender that is always looking for ways to improve customer experience while changing life for the better for Canadians without traditional access to credit. We are also excited to be able to offer unsecured lending options to our loyal customer base."

About progressa

progressa™ is Canada's fastest growing financial technology company focused on helping non-prime and near-prime Canadians seeking to improve their financial health. We serve the over three million Canadians who have had their credit rating impacted by overdue bills and items that have gone to collections. By building a loan that fits their budget and using it to pay their overdue bills directly, we help our customers reduce their debt load and establish or rebuild their credit score. With the help of advanced data science and analytics we can effectively and efficiently evaluate credit risk and provide loans where traditional institutions cannot. For more information, visit www.progressa.com.

About Alpine Credits

Alpine Credits is a pioneer in the Canadian private lending market, lending out millions of its own funds monthly and funding over $1 billion in home equity loans since 1969. Alpine Credits offers homeowners quick access to the equity in their homes and, unlike the banks, our primary focus is the value of your real estate relative to how much you owe against it - not your credit, age or income. At Alpine Credits we believe all Canadian homeowners should have a fair chance at getting the money they need and our business is built on the belief that the traditional banking system may not be the right fit for all Canadians. Our intent is to offer Canadian homeowners an alternative (not a replacement) to the banks and credit unions. We strive to make our lending process straightforward, transparent and extremely efficient while being committed to best in class customer service. For more information, visit www.alpinecredits.ca.