London/ Lagos, 17 June 2025 – LemFi, the fast-growing financial platform for immigrants, has announced the acquisition of Pillar, a UK-based fintech startup that enables newly arrived immigrants to access credit cards by porting their credit histories across borders.
This move comes after LemFi’s $53M Series B raise in January to transform financial services for immigrants.
While neither company has shared deal specifics publicly, industry sources say this marks a strategic step in LemFi’s ambition to launch credit products tailored to immigrant communities, beginning in the UK.
📌 Why this merger matters
- Addressing a major market gap: Pillar, co‑founded in 2021 by Revolut veterans Ashutosh Bhatt and Adam Lewis, gained headlines by enabling users to hold a UK credit card before arriving in the country, leveraging open banking and international credit data. Ashutosh Bhatt and Adam Lewis will join the LemFi team.
- Perfect strategic fit: LemFi, founded in 2021, has accumulated over one million users and surpassed $1 billion in monthly remittance volume. While its focus has been on payments and multi‑currency wallets, the Pillar acquisition allows it to seamlessly offer credit products on top of existing financial infrastructure.
- Regulatory edge: Pillar is approved by the UK’s FCA as an agent lender and has built integrations with Indian credit bureaus, enabling cross-border credit mobility for users moving from India and beyond . LemFi now inherits these crucial capabilities.
🚀 What comes next?
- UK Launch of immigrant-focused credit cards
Users coming to the UK—particularly from countries like India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Kenya—may soon be offered credit cards based on their international credit histories, even if they haven’t yet established a UK credit file. - Deep integration with wallet and remittance services
As Pillar’s credit issuance is folded into LemFi’s platform, customers could manage payments, remittance, FX and credit lines—all from a unified app and multi-currency wallets. - A platform play
With a customer base exceeding a million and a global footprint, LemFi could leverage its existing European infrastructure to extend Pillar’s credit model to other markets in North America, Africa, and Asia. - Financial inclusion on a larger scale
The merged capabilities align well with LemFi’s founder Ridwan Olalere’s vision: “build the financial services hub for immigrants globally”. The combined entity is well-positioned to expand this model beyond the UK.
🔍 Broader implications
- For immigrant communities: Access to credit can unlock everything from housing, utilities, education, to entrepreneurship—areas where new arrivals often face precarious barriers.
- For fintech landscape: This signals a broader shift where niche players like Pillar get subsumed into larger platforms seeking to provide end-to-end service to underserved segments.
- Competitive pressure: While giants like Amex offer some cross-border credit portability, none have the deep remittance infrastructure or immigrant-focused product bundles that LemFi now controls. This could force incumbents to rethink strategies for immigrant finance.
🧭 Outlook
- Short term: We should expect a phased rollout of Pillar-powered credit cards in the UK market by late 2025, bundled with LemFi’s existing multi-currency accounts and remittance services.
- Medium term: Expansion into other large immigrant corridors—Canada, Australia, possibly the US and selected African or Asian markets.
- Long term: If successful, LemFi’s blueprint could become a global standard for inclusive, borderless financial access for diaspora and migrant communities.
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[03 – 04 September, 2025 – Lagos]
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LemFi has acquired Pillar, a UK-based fintech startup that provides credit cards to immigrants.
This move comes after LemFi’s $53M Series B raise in January to transform financial services for immigrants.
The acquisition will enable LemFi launch credit cards targeted at immigrant communities, beginning with the UK.
LemFi’s CEO Ridwan Olalere says ‘LemFi Credit’ will allow existing UK customers grow their credit from the LemFi app.
Pillar’s co-founders Ashutosh Bhatt and Adam Lewis will join LemFi’s’s exec team.
The deal has been approved by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), so they’re good to go!
Big move. Congrats to the team! 🚀👏🏾