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What to Know Before Raising a Debt Facility for Your Credit Card Program

  • Writer: Scott Bass
    Scott Bass
  • Nov 17
  • 3 min read

A tactical guide for fintech founders planning to fund credit at scale



You’ve validated the product. You’re ready to scale. Now comes the big question: where’s the capital coming from?


For fintech teams launching credit card products, getting a debt facility in place is one of the most important—and misunderstood—steps in building a durable lending business.


If you’re planning to originate credit at scale, you’ll eventually need outside capital to do it. But not all debt is created equal. And not all fintechs are prepared when they go to raise it.


At Ensemblex, we’ve helped teams move from bootstrapped origination to institutional capital—and we’ve seen where deals get stuck. Here’s what founders and early credit teams need to know.



Why Debt Facilities Matter in Credit Products


When you issue a credit card, you’re fronting capital to the consumer and collecting repayment later. At small volumes, you might fund that from your own balance sheet or partner bank. But once you scale, that gets expensive—fast.


That’s where debt facilities come in.


✅ A debt facility gives you access to capital to fund receivables, repayable over time as your customers pay you back.


It’s essential for:


  • Scaling originations

  • Managing liquidity

  • Optimizing your cost of capital

  • Demonstrating to investors that your credit product is economically viable


But getting a facility—and getting one with terms you can live with—isn’t just about finding a lender. It’s about understanding how credit capital markets work, what lenders look for, and how your product, data, and operations stack up.



What Lenders Care About (And What You Need to Show)


Debt capital providers want confidence that:


  • Your credit performance is predictable

  • Your ops and controls are tight

  • Your economics make sense

  • You can manage risk—and compliance—at scale


To get there, you’ll need to come prepared with:


1. Cohort Performance Data


Lenders will want to see vintage-level data:


  • Approval volumes

  • Delinquencies and losses

  • Payment behavior

  • Utilization over time

  • Seasoning trends


If you’re early-stage, this data might be limited—but even a few months of clean, organized performance can go a long way.


✅ Tip: Structure your data like a lender would. Ensemblex helps fintechs prepare investor-grade reporting packages that resonate with credit capital providers.



2. A Clear Credit Policy & Model


Debt providers want to understand how you approve and manage risk:


  • What’s your underwriting logic?

  • How do you segment credit risk?

  • What’s your approval rate and decline strategy?

  • Do you have a process for line assignments, increases, and collections?


✅ Your credit policy and model are as important to lenders as your pitch deck is to VCs.



3. Capital Structure & Loss Waterfall


Most facilities require you to put up some first-loss capital (your equity buffer). You’ll also need to understand:


  • Advance rates (how much of the receivables lenders will fund)

  • Triggers (performance thresholds that could pause funding)

  • Waterfall structure (how cash gets distributed: fees, lender principal, excess spread)


✅ Your ability to negotiate terms improves when you deeply understand this structure—and can speak their language.



4. Servicing & Compliance Infrastructure


Debt providers want to know you can handle:


  • Statement generation and payment processing

  • Delinquency workflows and collections

  • Regulatory compliance (e.g. Reg Z, FCRA, ECOA)

  • Audits and portfolio monitoring


If you’re using third-party vendors, be ready to explain their controls, SLAs, and oversight mechanisms.


✅ We’ve helped fintechs build lender-ready servicing operations and vendor governance frameworks that hold up under diligence.



Timing: When to Start Looking


The right time to start pursuing a debt facility is before you need it. Raising capital when you’re already running out of it is an uphill climb.


We generally advise:


  • Begin conversations once you have 3–6 months of clean originations and payment data

  • Start informal lender meetings to gather feedback early

  • Don’t wait until your credit line is full or your bank asks about funding scale


✅ Ensemblex can help you sequence capital planning alongside product milestones, so you’re ready when it matters.



What Type of Facility Should You Look For?


Not all facilities are structured the same. You’ll hear terms like:


  • Warehouse lines

  • Forward flow agreements

  • Revolvers

  • Receivables financing

  • Securitization-ready platforms


Which one is right depends on:


  • Your stage and volume

  • Your investor base

  • Your loss curves

  • How much control you want over structure and reporting


✅ We help fintechs evaluate capital options based on their actual lending model—not just what’s standard in the market.



Where Ensemblex Comes In


We’ve been on both sides of the table—building fintech credit programs from scratch, and helping teams prepare for institutional debt.


Our team helps fintech founders and credit leads:


  • Get lender-grade data and reporting in place

  • Build or refine their credit policy and model

  • Assess the readiness of servicing and compliance operations

  • Run structured processes to engage the right debt partners


We know what credit capital providers expect—because we’ve built what they’re looking for.



✅ Raising debt is hard. Doing it unprepared is harder.


Talk to Ensemblex.


We help fintechs build lender-ready credit programs—from first application to scaled capital

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