Figure cuts mortgage costs to $1,000 and nine days, versus $12,000 and 45 days, using models and blockchain.
Figure powers 500 origination partners like Lowe's, doing $2bn monthly volume with 60% medium-term margins.
Figure's loan officer assistant, built with Sierra, lifts conversion about 20% and is rolling out to all 500 partners.
Figure Wants to Be the Rails for All Lending
Figure sells the rails and capital markets behind other lenders' home equity products, not loans off its own balance sheet. Because about 500 partners already own the customer relationship, Figure spends nothing on customer acquisition and still earns higher margins, while software, models and on-chain loan records strip out most of the cost and time of originating a mortgage. The bet is that the same infrastructure carries into investor mortgages, auto lending, small business lending and beyond, with tokenisation and stablecoins doing the plumbing in the back end.
Takeaways
Figure sells lending rails, not loans. Figure runs the software and capital markets behind about 500 origination partners, including Lowe's and regional banks. Partners handle their own marketing and sales, so Figure avoids customer acquisition spending and balance sheet lending while earning higher margins.
Figure cuts mortgage cost to $1,000. A Figure mortgage costs about $1,000 against an industry average of $12,000 and closes in nine days versus 45. Model-based underwriting and appraisals replace human underwriters and appraisers, and blockchain records of loan attributes cut 80% of third-party diligence review cost.
A $35tn home equity market leaves room. Figure does about $2bn of monthly volume and $30bn to date, with triple-A ratings from S&P and Moody's and an average loan of about $100,000. Mortgage is a $2tn annual market, leaving a huge amount of white space.
AI writes a quarter of Figure's code. Roughly 20 to 25% of Figure's code is written with AI, using Cursor, Grok and other models. A loan officer assistant built with Sierra on Figure's own data lifts conversion about 20% and is rolling out to all 500 partners.
Tokenisation stays behind the scenes. Figure keeps tokenisation in the back end, comparing it to the cloud era, and settles loans with stablecoins. On-chain data lets investors pre-commit to fund loans before they exist, and Figure plays a Fannie Mae-like liquidity role.
Guidance points to 60% margins. Pompliano cites about $200m of quarterly revenue, roughly $800m annualised, and a rule of 150 last quarter. Tannenbaum says Figure gives volume guidance and has guided to about 60% medium-term margins.
Crypto-backed loans have never lost money. Tannenbaum says bitcoin and ethereum liquidate fast enough that the crypto-backed product has never lost money. He has been in fintech since joining SoFi in 2014 and worked at Brex before Figure, and the company holds licences in all 50 states.
Where Figure goes next
Investor mortgages through Kiavi, the market leader with about 10% share, in a market where about 25% of US housing stock is investor-owned.
Auto lending through a partner that brought its capital market activity onto blockchain and onto Figure's platform.
Small business lending, where Tannenbaum says the Small Business Administration is capped annually and slow.
Crypto-backed loans, which carry a $1,250 promotion for new borrowers.
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