What Refresh Financial does

Refresh Financial is a Canadian private for-profit fintech company founded in 2010 and headquartered in Kelowna, British Columbia. The company employs 51 to 100 staff and, per its stated company description, provides financial tools designed to help underserved Canadians gain long-term access to affordable forms of credit, positioning its product suite around financial inclusion for credit-underserved consumer segments.

The input corpus supplied for Refresh Financial does not include granular data on the company's specific product lineup (e.g., credit-builder loans, rent-reporting services, secured cards, or installment products), its underlying technology stack or underwriting methodology, its pricing structure and fee schedule, its partner or lender network, or its customer-acquisition channels. Consequently, the platform architecture, revenue mechanics, and go-to-market strategy cannot be characterized from the available sources.

What can be stated from the firmographic record is that Refresh Financial is a privately held Canadian corporation, founded 15 years prior to the present analysis window and operating at a small-to-mid scale of 51 to 100 employees, with no public listing, no disclosed parent company, and no disclosed funding rounds in the input. Substantive diligence on product depth, technology, unit economics, and competitive positioning would require primary-source data not present in the provided input.

Name

Refresh Financial

Legal name

Borrowell Inc.

Website

https://refreshfinancial.ca

Company type

Private

Founded year

2014

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

Refresh Financial is a Kelowna-based Canadian fintech founded in 2010 that provides financial tools to help underserved Canadians gain long-term access to affordable credit, operating with 51 to 100 employees.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Consumer Credit Services

NAICS

Credit Intermediation and Related Activities (522)

SIC

Personal Credit Institutions (6141)

akta.pro primary industry

Personal Loan Refinance (Rate/Term) (FSAKAIAB)

akta.pro secondary industry

Alternative Data & Credit Scoring (Cashflow, Telco, Utility, Open Banking) (FSAGAHAC)

Keywords

• Credit building tools
• Consumer credit access
• Financial inclusion services
• Personal credit solutions
• Alternative credit products

Headquarters

HQ city

Kelowna

HQ country

Canada

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Referral Fees from Financial Product Partners: Borrowell provides free credit scores and reports to users. The company monetizes by analyzing user credit profiles to recommend financial products from over 75 partner companies. When users click on partner recommendations or take out financial products, partner companies pay Borrowell referral fees. This is a transaction-based revenue model where the core credit monitoring remains free.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels10 records

Core offering

Refresh Financial provides financial tools that help underserved Canadians gain long-term access to affordable forms of credit. The company is based in Kelowna, Canada, was founded in 2010, operates as a private for-profit entity, and has between 51 and 100 employees.

Product overview

Borrowell is Canada's leading credit education fintech platform offering a unified product portfolio centered on free credit score access and personalized financial product recommendations. The core product is the Free Credit Score service, which provides free Equifax credit scores and reports with weekly monitoring updates without impacting the user's credit. Surrounding this core are add-on modules including Credit Builder (a credit-builder loan for credit establishment), Rent Advantage (enabling rent payment reporting to credit bureaus), and a suite of personalized recommendation engines for Credit Cards, Mortgages, Personal Loans, Banking Products, Insurance, and Investing. The platform also offers a Credit Coach feature providing free credit improvement education. Borrowell partners with 75+ financial institutions (including major Canadian banks like RBC, TD, Scotiabank, CIBC, BMO, and others) to deliver personalized product recommendations, earning referral fees when users act on recommendations. All core services are free to users, with bank-level 256-bit encryption security.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Quantifiable outcome

• Over 4 million members have signed up for Borrowell services
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers14 records

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature6 records

Partnerships

15 partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• American ExpresscoreGTM or Marketing PartnerAmerican Express is a financial product partner providing credit card recommendations through Borrowell's platform. When users are recommended American Express cards and apply, Borrowell receives referral fees.
• BMOcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerBMO (Bank of Montreal) is a financial product partner offering banking and credit products through Borrowell's recommendation engine.
• Canadian Tire BankcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerCanadian Tire Bank partner providing financial products through Borrowell's platform.
• Capital OnecoreGTM or Marketing PartnerCapital One is a financial product partner offering credit cards and lending products through Borrowell's platform.
• CIBCcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerCIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce) is a financial product partner through Borrowell's platform.
• FairstonecoreGTM or Marketing PartnerFairstone is a financial product partner offering lending solutions through Borrowell's platform.
• MBNAcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerMBNA is a credit card issuer partner through Borrowell's platform.
• National BankcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerNational Bank of Canada is a financial product partner through Borrowell's platform.
• Neo FinancialcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerNeo Financial is a fintech partner offering banking and credit products through Borrowell's platform.
• PC FinancialcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerPresident's Choice Financial is a partner through Borrowell's platform.
• RBCcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerRoyal Bank of Canada is a financial product partner through Borrowell's platform.
• ScotiabankcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerScotiabank is a financial product partner through Borrowell's platform.
• Spring FinancialcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerSpring Financial is a lending partner through Borrowell's platform.
• TD BankcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerTD Bank is a financial product partner through Borrowell's platform.
• EquifaxcoreTechnology or IntegrationEquifax is the credit bureau partner providing credit scores and credit reports to Borrowell users. Borrowell accesses Equifax credit data to provide weekly credit score updates and credit reports to over 4 million members.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves1 record

Direct peers

• Borrowell: Canada's largest credit education platform with 4M+ members and 75+ financial-product partners. Directly comparable because it serves the same Canadian consumer-credit audience with credit monitoring, education, and product-matching, just downstream of Refresh's credit-building tools.
• Spring Financial: Canadian consumer lender offering credit-builder loans and personal loans to near-prime and credit-rebuilding borrowers. Closely comparable to Refresh's product mix and underserved-customer focus.
• easyfinancial (goeasy): Canadian subprime consumer-lending arm of goeasy, focused on personal loans and credit-building products for non-prime borrowers. Highly comparable customer segment and product set to Refresh.
• Fairstone: Large Canadian consumer lender serving near-prime borrowers with personal loans and credit-building products. Comparable to Refresh in target customer and loan products, though at significantly greater scale.

Broad incumbents

• goeasy: TSX-listed parent of easyfinancial and leases, providing a wide range of near-prime consumer credit in Canada. Comparable in end-customer and credit-product categories but operates at much greater scale and capital access.
• Mogo: Canadian fintech offering credit score monitoring, personal loans, and other consumer finance products. Comparable in targeting Canadian consumers around credit health, but with a broader product portfolio.

Emerging players

• Neo Financial: Canadian fintech offering banking, credit cards, and credit-building products to consumers. Comparable in pursuing underserved and younger Canadian credit consumers, though with a different primary product (banking/card) focus.
• KOHO Financial: Canadian neobank with credit-building features built into its prepaid and credit products. Comparable in serving credit-underserved Canadians, but anchored in a banking-account model rather than direct credit-building loans.

Regional players

• Self Financial (Self): US-based credit-building fintech offering credit-builder loans and rent-reporting. Directly comparable product to Refresh's credit-building tools, but serves US rather than Canadian consumers.
• Affirm: US-based consumer credit and credit-building fintech. Comparable product philosophy (transparent, accessible consumer credit) but operates in a different geography and primarily through merchant point-of-sale lending rather than direct credit-building.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights4 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/refreshcanada
• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UC7RvB2IkNUN1rxQ_scSgfyg
• Facebookfacebook.com/RefreshFinancial
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/refresh-financial
• Instagraminstagram.com/myborrowell
• TikToktiktok.com/@myborrowell

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Refresh Financial