Research and Insights

In the wake of climate change and social unrest surrounding racial inequality, many companies are ramping up their environmental, social and governance (ESG) programs to highlight the importance of being a good corporate citizen with a positive impact on customers and community. Banks in particular are reimagining their role as corporate stewards, and rethinking what ESG means for them as part of a broader emphasis on corporate social responsibility (CSR). Katy Jacob, SpringFour’s VP of Research & Impact, discusses how SpringFour fits in to the evolving ESG landscape.

Long before financial health became a hot topic, SpringFour recognized that connections to local resources could help improve financial lives and increase repayment rates. MMI has a kindred mission in seeking to help families get through a financial crisis through counseling and debt management services. Read the case study to learn how the organizations have worked together to help renters maintain housing security in a time of crisis during COVID-19.

Since lockdowns began, our team added hundreds of carefully researched and vetted financial resources to our database and delivered more than 3.8 million financial resources to individuals struggling to stay afloat. And we did it all in partnership with many more like-minded banks, lenders, nonprofits, and employers. Our team members share in our own words how we met demand during our busiest year ever and what being part of the solution has meant to each one of us.

Enova and SpringFour are Chicago-based fintechs working together to improve families’ financial health. The two companies began to explore a partnership in October of 2019, and by the spring of 2020, Enova had launched SpringFour resources via S4direct to its CashNetUSA and NetCredit brands. Read the case study to find out more about how this partnership helped customers through the COVID crisis and beyond.

SpringFour today announced that it delivered almost 3.3 million financial health referrals to Americans in need in 2020. SpringFour increased its support with 37% more resources available and 21% more cities covered, and increased its subscribers by 43%, which included 44% more banking and lending clients including Avant, Elevate, Enova, and two of the top 10 U.S. banks and others, and 25% more nonprofit clients.

Each year, SpringFour surveys the users of its S4pro tool – agents and counselors who use S4pro to provide vetted financial resources to customers in need. The survey helps us get a finger on the impact our referral tool has on our clients’ business, their employees working directly with consumers in need of financial assistance, and customer outcomes. Among other insights, the survey shows that SpringFour has become an integral piece of many companies’ COVID-19 response strategies.

Read insights from SpringFour’s VP of Impact and Research, Katy Jacob, on an impending crisis in access to healthcare that would impact up to a third of the country. Healthcare costs and access impact every aspect of Americans’ financial health, and here at SpringFour, we have seen first-hand how the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the increased need for additional healthcare savings resources for families.

Financial health survey reveals that families face major challenges in paying for basic resources and do not know where to turn for assistance.

SpringFour is in a unique position to help address issues related to the unprecedented financial strain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our mission and business model has always been to partner with financial institutions and others to provide specific, local resources to families who need financial assistance. To this end, in late July, SpringFour issued a report of findings related to trends in resource need following the COVID-19 pandemic.