This company provides loans to immigrants and students when US banks won’t

While Manish Niraula was getting his master’s in electrical engineering at The University of Texas at Dallas, he paid his tuition out of pocket until he couldn’t anymore.

The university gave him some scholarship money, but that still didn’t cover all of his expenses.

As an international student from Nepal, Niraula didn’t have many options. He wasn’t eligible for student loans since he isn’t a U.S. citizen. He had asked friends back in Nepal if they could lend him some money, but that wasn’t enough.

He googled and googled until he stumbled upon Stilt on an online forum.

Stilt, a financial technology company that provides loans to immigrants, DACA recipients and underserved people, seemed too good to be true to Niraula.

So he kept googling to make sure it was real.

Eventually, he set up phone calls with Stilt representatives and was able to get the $4,000 he needed to finish his degree. Now, he works for Delphi Technologies in Indiana.

Niraula credits the company for his success.

The company’s co-founder Rohit Mittal said the idea for it came from his own experience in trying to secure money for his education.

When he first arrived in New York City from India to get his master’s at Columbia University, an Indian bank only loaned him 75 percent of the money he needed. He had to find the other 25 percent on his own.

On top of that, he was having trouble finding somewhere to live. Most New York City apartments required an advance deposit, which he didn’t have.

Luckily, he met Priyank Singh, who happened to have a room for rent in his apartment. Singh was also an international student from India who struggled with funding his education but eventually made ends meet.

Today, they’re the co-founders of Stilt.

In 2015, Mittal and Singh started the company as a way to help people with no credit history build a better credit score. They were accepted into the Winter 2016 class of a Y Combinator, a program that grants seed money to early-stage start-ups.

Today it’s a licensed lender in 15 states, including Arizona, California and Texas with large immigrant populations. In Texas, it’s estimated that one in six Texas residents is an immigrant. An annual report from the Institute of International Education found two Texas universities in its list 25 of U.S. colleges with the most international students in the 2017/2018 academic year: UT Dallas (9,713 international students) and Texas A&M University - College Station (6,894).

So when someone inquires about taking out a loan, Stilt asks for their visa information, as well as their work history, college transcripts and bank accounts.

Then they’re able to customize a loan package.

“Other companies tend to distrust this population and think of them highly risky,” Mittal said. “If they give money to this population, they think they’ll take the money and go back to their home countries. There’s no law against lending to immigrants, they just choose not to do this.”

Mittal said that Stilt’s loans have helped people in all kinds of situations in the last three years. A recent client was a Turkish immigrant who needed a loan to pay for his daughter’s surgery.

He also noted that many international students turn to Stilt as their last source of funding to complete their degree programs. Mittal said he was particularly proud to be able to help further someone’s education.

“We recently looked at some data and found that we have helped people generate $200 million in lifetime income because we helped them finish school,” he said. “A lot of people come back for second or third loans. They’ve built a trustworthy relationship with us and we can help them even further.”

Here are the basic terms of a Stilt loan:

• Term: 6-24 months
• Loan size: $1,000 to $25,000 (exceptions for higher amounts in some cases)
• Origination fee: 0% to 5% (maximum amount depends on state)
• Interest rates: 7.99% to 29.99% (varies by state)
• Deferral option: Interest-only payments for up to six months (only with a verified job offer)

This story was originally published January 15, 2019 at 2:00 PM.