CUSTOMER Q&A: CUSHION

In 2017, Cushion launched as an AI-powered tool to help consumers negotiate with banks to remove overdraft fees. However, as payments evolved, the Cushion team noticed more customers relying on buy now, pay later (BNPL) loans to purchase everyday expenses—even $6 hamburgers. 

They realized there was a gap in the marketplace and set out to redefine bill pay for the BNPL era.

To build these new solutions, Cushion integrated a suite of
Plaid products:

• Link for smooth account connectivity

• Auth for secure bank account data access

• Identity Verification for easy KYC

• Transfer for seamless money movement

Today, Cushion is the go-to app for consumers to build credit and simplify their bills. It helps people save money by canceling unwanted subscriptions, organizing their bills (including BNPL payments) using AI, and improving their credit score while paying their bills.

In this interview from Plaid Effects, we speak with Paul Kesserwani, Founder and CEO of Cushion, about the company’s evolution and how it's leveraging Plaid to better
serve consumers. 

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Plaid: Tell us about Cushion and how the idea came about.

Kesserwani: The world of bills has changed dramatically. A decade ago, subscriptions disrupted traditional bill pay. Buy now, pay later (BNPL) has emerged as a new class of recurring obligations.

Back in 2017, we built an AI-powered service that could negotiate with banks to get overdraft fees refunded for consumers. It was a hit, especially during COVID. But as we processed nearly a billion transactions through Plaid, we noticed consumers were struggling to pay not just traditional bills but also a large number of BNPL installments for everyday purchases.

We even saw one user finance a $6 hamburger with BNPL. That was our wake-up call. BNPL had evolved from financing big-ticket items online to a staple in consumers' lives, financing daily goods like gas, groceries, and takeout; it had become a regular part of people's monthly expenses.

The problem was that existing tools weren't designed to handle this new reality. So, we took a giant leap and pivoted Cushion to redefine bill pay for the BNPL era.

Today, Cushion is a consumer bill pay app that offers folks a single place to manage, pay, and build credit with both traditional bills and BNPL payments.

Plaid: Why did you choose Plaid to help start your business? 

Kesserwani: Back in 2017, we needed a solution to help us connect to financial institutions and pull transaction data for our AI-powered bank-fee-negotiating business, and Plaid was the clear leader. But over time, Plaid grew into this multifaceted platform, even acquiring companies like Cognito, which we were using.

We then pivoted into tackling challenges with bills and BNPL, so our relationship with Plaid evolved. We now use Plaid for a whole bunch of things: Link for smooth account connectivity, Auth for secure bank account data access, Identity Verification for easy KYC, and Transfer for seamless money movement.

Plaid doesn’t just provide the infrastructure that we leverage and use but also the data, insights, and tooling we need to innovate at the cutting edge of consumer bill pay.

Plaid: Plaid invests heavily in products that drive user growth and also in products that help reduce costs. How do you think about balancing growth and cost?

Kesserwani: Standing up a consumer finance app is expensive, especially one that issues cards and moves money. Historically, we used Plaid to pull somebody’s account and routing number, then send that information to another service that could move the money between accounts, but only after we’d KYC’d that customer with yet a different service.

It's a huge win that we can now do all three things with Plaid’s suite of APIs designed to work seamlessly together.

Plaid: How has using Plaid promoted a sense of trust and security for your customers?

Kesserwani: In the consumer finance space, Plaid is synonymous with safety. If you ask a consumer to connect their bank to your app, they expect to see the Plaid Link widget. 

What’s most interesting is that we recently saw this in action. We run ads on Facebook and Instagram, and consumers comment asking questions about security and safety. Other consumers often chime in, saying, “Don't worry. They use Plaid to connect to your bank.” It’s mind-blowing to see that consumers know the name and brand of the infrastructure powering the app that they want to use. 

We’re very fortunate to be able to piggyback on and leverage Plaid's brand and the trust it has established with consumers over the past decade.