ReadyForZero Helps Americans Pay Down $12.5 Million in Personal Debt in its First Year

SAN FRANCISCO, March 22, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- ReadyForZero (www.readyforzero.com), the leading online platform for controlling and reducing personal debt, today announced that it has helped Americans to pay down more than $12.5 million in personal debt in just over one year of operation. The free service creates a customized plan using personalized financial data that helps Americans better stay in control and accelerate their repayment. Regular users repay debts twice as fast using ReadyForZero. This increases the likelihood that they will repay their debts, thereby preventing difficult financial situations like bankruptcies and defaults.

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As a testament to its efficacy, ReadyForZero has experienced an average organic growth of 13 percent each month, and now has nearly $200 million of its user's debt under management. 

"ReadyForZero is incredibly proud to have helped our users reach this $12.5 million milestone in just over a year.  This milestone proves that both our technology and our methodology work, as thousands of ReadyForZero users can attest," said Rod Ebrahimi, CEO of ReadyForZero.  "We're expanding our mandate beyond helping people pay down their debts by offering financial products that provide real savings through trusted partners that are uniquely tailored to people's situations. Given recent regulatory and economic changes, we believe this is how banks and their customers will need to work together in the future."

To this end, ReadyForZero has introduced a sophisticated and 'intelligent' savings platform where ReadyForZero users can receive financial offers that are tailored to their specific financial situations directly from financial institutions, and decide whether or not to accept the terms with minimal effort.

Whereas most financial offers use a single filter like a credit score to estimate whether users might qualify for an offer, and then recommend products that generate the largest referral bonus for their companies, the ReadyForZero savings platform analyzes actual performance criteria – such as payment history, cash flow, debt-to-income ratio, behavioral data and other financial triggers – and delivers only those financial products that would have a positive impact for an individual's situation. ReadyForZero pre-qualifies each user for each offer, and empowers users to decide which ones to pursue.  This prevents the unnecessary sharing of sensitive financial data or personal information with banks or other third-parties, no data is exchanged.

The ReadyForZero savings platform API (application programming interface) allows financial institutions to easily integrate with ReadyForZero to set up triggers for each offer and track its performance.  In the first week of testing, ReadyForZero's savings platform delivered more than $330,000 in targeted offers with an average potential savings of $770 per person, and consolidated over $100,000 in high interest debt.

Ebrahimi continues, "When we find a way to save our users money, we present the offer directly to them so that they can decide what to do - without sharing any personal data. If the offer makes sense, given their specific situation, they can accept it and connect with that financial provider. Until then, the provider doesn't know a thing about you or your account with ReadyForZero.  We're confident that this new savings platform will open up more ways for us to use our technology to help people improve their financial lives and reach their goals."

About ReadyForZero

ReadyForZero is a free, online program that helps the more than 100 million Americans with debt and challenging financial situations better control their debts and credit reputations. Launched in February 2011, ReadyForZero users are paying off debt twice as fast as people not using the program. The company is headquartered in San Francisco. For more information visit www.readyforzero.com. Visit our blog http://blog.readyforzero.com/ to check out real product success stories.

For media inquiries only, please contact

Eric Sokolsky
Sparkpr for ReadyForZero
908-288-7201
[email protected]

SOURCE ReadyForZero