Meratas Inc. (“Meratas”) a leading Income Share Agreement (ISA) development company based in New York enters into a joint venture with Alchemy Technology, Inc (“Alchemy”), a leading provider of turn-key FinTech Lending Operating Systems.

Meratas, one of the first companies to offer direct-to-student ISAs, works with schools and skills training courses to provide innovative ISA programs designed to promote student accessibility and increase enrollment.

“The ISA model is a particularly elegant solution for upskilling, as it shifts risk away from the student while also signaling value from the institution” said Darius Goldman, Founder and CEO of Meratas.

“In speaking with students and school-administrators, we already knew of the ability of ISAs to democratize access to higher education,” said Goldman, “but until now, there has been no way to implement the infrastructure required to operate an ISA program on a wide-scale and cost-efficient basis. That is why, after conducting an extensive search, we selected Alchemy to leverage their technical expertise to build an ISA SaaS solution. Now, all schools and skills training courses can provide their students a fully customizable, start-to-finish ISA program, with a simple to use interface.”

“We are pleased to be working with the Meratas team to launch a novel Income Share Agreement SaaS Financing Platform that will change the future of merit-based financing forever,” said Timothy Li, Founder of Alchemy. “Meratas and Alchemy have been working closely together on delivering a new SaaS solution for the next generation of educational financing. Today, we are proud to announce our release of a brand-new ISA experience for schools and students alike, with a full-service, easy-to-use, mobile-friendly ISA Platform.”

Income Share Agreements represent a safer and more flexible alternative to private loans, and are designed to reduce barriers to continued education. With an ISA, the upfront cost of tuition is reduced or eliminated, in exchange for the student’s promise to pay a fixed percentage of future income over a pre-determined period.

The Meratas ISA Platform enables easy integration of industry leading consumer benefits:

• Early Termination Incentives: Students may cancel their ISA within one year at the initial tuition cost.
• Incremental Payment Caps: Incremental payment caps reward students who find early career success by making it more affordable to end their ISA contract early.
• Incentive-Based Income Share Percentages: Automatic income share discounts for opting into consumer benefits, or for finishing a program on time.
• Free Tax Preparation for the student graduate during the life of the ISA contract.
• Post-graduate Career Assistance and Mentoring.

The Meratas ISA Platform includes the following main features:

• School and Program Profile Settings: Schools can create numerous ISA programs (with no minimum enrollment requirements). Each program supports different contract terms, consumer benefits and ISA variables. Schools can cost-efficiently pilot new ISA programs in as quickly as one week.
• School Administrative Portal: School maintains real-time transparency of all ISA applications, outstanding contracts, and performance. Track, set and confirm admissions guidelines, graduation dates, early terminations, confirmation of employment and income verification post-graduation.
• ISA SaaS Workflow: Custom workflows enables School (or its designated agents) to engage and communicate with students; approve applications; verify post-graduation employment and income. Make manual and unscheduled payments with various modules designed to help students manage their payment obligations.
• Student Portal: All communications are handled through an online student portal, minimizing administrative burdens. Application process is desktop and mobile-friendly. Fully e-native. Student may upload all required documents including identity verification (pre-application) and employment information (post-graduation) to initiate or amend payments. Thoughtful income verification and deferment triggers to ensure students benefit from payment deferment when needed without administrative delay.
• Payment Management: ISA Platform automatically adjusts payment amount when students (or their school) submit evidence of change in income or employment. Payment functionality also supports various stop-and-go functionalities.

If you are interested in utilizing the ISA Platform for your school or skills training course, please reach out to Jamie Davis at Meratas at Jamie@meratas.com.

About Meratas Inc.
https://www.meratas.com

Meratas Inc. is an ISA development company, offering a full-service ISA SaaS platform for schools and skills training courses to design, implement, and administer custom ISA programs. Meratas partners with institutions to create thoughtful ISA programs designed to promote student accessibility and increase enrollment. Meratas ISA programs are intended to incentivize students, schools, and capital providers to work together to promote and finance only the best educational programs that lead to solid careers. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. Please contact Darius Goldman for additional information at darius@meratas.com

About Alchemy

Alchemy Technologies is a world first fintech infrastructure company offering out-of-the-box technology, algorithms, and servicing to launch financial products for Banks, Specialty Financing Companies, Point of Sale Financing, and FinTech startups alike. Our leasing solution reduces the barrier to entry and brings tremendous value both in our software and industry know-how. Our end-to-end infrastructure offering includes end user experience, merchant experience, loan origination system, decision engine, loan management system, payment gateways, and secondary market access. Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.