PayJoy CEO Doug Ricket says the company will launch an attestation protocol and a tradable fund token in October 2026, both aimed at preventing double-pledged loans and speeding investor liquidity.
Ricket says PayJoy's asset fund, which has grown past half a billion dollars against a 15 percent target return, gives the fund the first 15 percent while excess returns flow to the tech company.
Ricket argues PayJoy's phone-lock model protects honest borrowers in emerging markets by blocking fraudsters who take phones without paying, a claim he ties to roughly 23m cumulative borrowers across nine countries.
PayJoy Turns Phones Into Collateral, Then Blockchain Into Investor Liquidity
PayJoy lends to people without credit histories in emerging markets by treating the smartphone as collateral, and it funds those loans through an asset fund that pays outside investors first. Ricket is now applying blockchain to the investor side. One product proves the loans are not pledged twice, and another lets investors sell fund stakes without waiting for quarterly redemption.
Takeaways
A locked phone replaces a missing credit history. PayJoy lends against smartphones as digital collateral and locks the phone when payments are late. Ricket says most customers who reach the lock eventually pay in full and build credit history. The lock needs to work about 99.9% of the time, not perfectly.
The fund pays investors first and PayJoy last. The asset fund, now over half a billion dollars, targets a 15% return that the company says it has never missed. Investors get the first 15% and PayJoy keeps any excess. Investors absorb losses only after PayJoy's revenue is gone.
Blockchain attestation aims to stop double pledging. Launching in October 2026, the protocol publishes the fund's loan tape to a blockchain, signed by PayJoy and a third party. It targets the double pledging of loans behind recent private credit scandals.
Tokenized fund stakes would give investors faster liquidity. Investors who pass know-your-customer checks could sell positions to each other instead of waiting for quarterly redemption, where a Q3 request pays out in Q4. PayJoy tokenizes the investor side, not individual loans, and the fund is hedged against currency risk.
Phone stores make customer acquisition very cheap. PayJoy meets buyers where they purchase phones, and they also get a PayJoy credit card. Ricket says acquisition cost can be about a tenth of a regular card company's. Typical loans are around $200, across nine countries.
Phone brands license the lock to sell more. PayJoy licenses its security platform to major smartphone makers and took it to China in 2018. Ricket says helping a Brazilian brand sell another 500,000 phones would matter to that brand. The company counts about 23m borrowers cumulatively.
PayJoy stays US-regulated while seeking local licenses. Headquartered in the US, PayJoy follows US securities and reporting law. It has non-bank financial company approval in India and is applying under Ecuador's new fintech law. Its chief risk officer, Brad Pennington, previously worked at Prosper.
What comes next
The fund is heading toward a billion dollars in the next year or two, and faster growth in the Philippines or India could need another couple hundred million.
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PayJoy keeps spare capacity and a waiting list of fund investors so it can absorb that growth.
It will run the attestation and liquidity products for a year before adding other blockchain uses.
Stablecoins are a possible next step. The largest Mexican peso stablecoin is only about $5m, and Ricket says PayJoy could spin up a $100m local stablecoin in Mexico, Brazil or India.