• Amount, a consumer lending and banking infrastructure provider, has acquired Linear Financial Technologies (Linear), an SMB loan and account origination infrastructure platform for financial institutions, for USD 175 million. 

• Linear’s platform will complement Amount’s retail banking and buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) solutions, as it offers the infrastructure for a range of SMB deposit and lending products such as business credit cards, loans, lines of credit, and SBA loans. Linear’s customers include Citizens Bank, PNC Bank, Fifth Third Bank, Bank of the West, and American Express. 

• The companies also believe that they should see synergies in their products, as the foundational items for SMB lending and consumer lending tend to be similar. Accordingly, the combined entity plans to broaden its capabilities in retail banking, B2C and B2B point-of-sale solutions, fraud detection solutions, and embedded finance, among others.

• As part of the deal, Linear will rebrand as Amount Small Business this year, and its  CEO Sam Graziano will join Amount’s executive team as the head of Amount Small Business. Moreover, the acquisition will expand Amount’s workforce to nearly 600 employees (from around 400, as of May last year). 

<ul><li> Analyst QuickTake: Amount entered several partnerships last year to expand its offerings, but this is its first acquisition. In April 2021, Barclays partnered with Amount to enable merchants to offer point-of-sale (POS) financing; Amount subsequently partnered with Marqeta in October 2021 to enable banks to offer BNPL solutions to end customers./ul>