Ally Financial, a digital financial services company, is expanding in Wilmington with the help of $2.6 million in taxpayer money.
Ally plans to hire 150 employees, adding to the company’s roughly 75 current workers. Ally has been in Delaware since December when it acquired Wilmington fintech startup Fair Square Financial for $750 million.
The state’s Council on Development Finance on Monday unanimously approved a $2.6 million grant tied to the creation of those 150 jobs. The money is distributed as the company reaches certain hiring benchmarks.
The grant money comes from the Delaware Strategic Fund, a $35 million pool of state money given to companies relocating to or expanding in Delaware. It’s Delaware’s primary business incentive program.
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Grant applicants are brought to the Council on Development Finance by the Delaware Prosperity Partnership, the privately run organization set up by Gov. John Carney to oversee the state’s economic development. Historically, the Prosperity Partnership’s endorsement has all but guaranteed approval.
As part of the planned hiring, Ally will expand its presence in the Brandywine Building, a downtown Wilmington office building constructed for DuPont in the late 1960s and now occupied by Citibank and several law firms.
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The main product offered through Fair Square is a group of consumer credit cards under the brand Ollo. The line is billed as a “transparent” and “low-fee” option for Americans not served by major financial institutions. The company uses machine-learning algorithms to incorporate hundreds of data points when assessing individual risk, shirking traditional credit scores.
A group of industry veterans with experience at CapitalOne, E-Trade and Citibank, among other companies, launched the line in 2017.
Contact Brandon Holveck at bholveck@delawareonline.com. Follow him on Twitter @holveck_brandon.
