Web

Pawn Friday will unite 1,000 shops to provide financial lifeline to underbanked

PawnGuru has come up with an alternative way to grant the underbanked financial access by using the pawn industry as an additional option to get cash.

Pawn Friday

The startup has already provided a financial lifeline to its 500,000 users. PawnGuru’s major marketing event launches tomorrow, Friday October 27: “Pawn Friday,” the first pawn shop sales event, offering high-quality goods such as Rolex’s and Xbox’s, at a discount. The event will provide access to over 1000 pawn shops in the country partnered with PawnGuru through their www.pawnguru.com/pawnfriday page.

Jordan Birnholtz, co-Founder at PawnGuru

“Pawn Friday will be an awesome shopping event for consumers looking for great deals, but its purpose is much larger than that,” said co-Founder Jordan Birnholtz in a press release. “Pawn shops provide a critical financial lifeline to underbanked consumers. There’s no need for people to be forced into a never-ending spiral of debt through payday loans and the like when other life-saving financial options, like pawn shops, exist,” said Jordan Birnholtz, one of PawnGuru’s founders.

Thirty million people across America do not have a bank account. With no access to mainstream financial services, checking or savings account, the unbanked population has started to be viewed as an area of the market uncatered to.

The developers of PawnGuru have brought this US$15 billion transaction industry online making the buying, selling and pawning of used goods more available for customers and pawn shops alike. Based in Detroit, PawnGuru has eschewed credit scores, credit cards and loans, and instead allows current and new customers access to America’s leading and local pawn shops.

The online platform allows consumers to receive offers for items they want to sell or pawn from pawn shops in their local area via email or text, and make sure they get the best prices. In turn, pawn shops now have the ability to gain easy access to an entirely new customer base. When taking out a loan isn’t an option, PawnGuru can suggest what items are selling well, and where you can go to sell them, allowing the unbanked access to liquid cash.

Pawn Friday will not only kick off the holiday season, with the best deals, but also shine the spotlight on how the pawn industry can directly help this large group of society with little, or no, access to traditional banking services.

Jess Rapp

Born and raised in Asia, and a global nomad, Jess is always on the look out for the next adventure, and what stories it will bring. She is passionate about solving world issues, and how technology can play a role in this.

View Comments

  • Certainly an interesting idea. I never get a real warm, fuzzy feeling when contemplating pawn shops, but maybe I'm out of touch. Definitely applaud PawnGuru's ingenuity and forward thinking.

Recent Posts

OpenAI submitted models to the hardest math test yet for AI

OpenAI published its proof attempts on February 14 for First Proof, a challenge put together…

1 day ago

The hidden costs of sedentary work: Why prevention starts at your desk

We all know that a sedentary lifestyle is harmful to our health. But recent studies…

1 day ago

Solving the headache of migrating cloud-based mailboxes for the enterprise

As organizations increasingly operate across hybrid and cloud-based email systems, migrating enterprise mailboxes has become…

1 day ago

Digital ID, programmable money pave way for ‘dystopian hellhole, horrific totalitarian regimes’: ESN at European Parliament

Digital ID, programmable money like Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), and AI are paving the…

3 days ago

Elon Musk says tariffs make solar artificially expensive in the U.S. But there is much more at play: Op-ed

Earlier this year, Elon Musk was direct about what comes next for the global economy:…

4 days ago

Britive Unified PAM Integrates with New Extended Plan for AWS Security Hub

Britive, provider of a unified privileged access management (PAM) platform, today announced its unified PAM…

4 days ago