Building a Company Based on Principles

As Affirm continues to grow, our ability to translate our ambitious mission (improve lives through honest financial products), governed by our core values (Focus, Boldness, Excellence, Transparency, and Responsibility), into a cogent day-to-day strategy becomes essential.

Truly great companies retain a deep, intimate sense of shared of understanding even as they expand exponentially. 

These are the core truths that drive decision making at Affirm. 

We are building a profitable enterprise built on our commitment to honest and transparent finance for everyone.

We are here to create products and services that deliver value. Value for our users, our merchants, our partners (e.g. banks that lend us money, which we lend to our users), and our shareholders, including every one of us.

We want to restore the original meaning of credit, which stands for “trust” and “belief.”

Take pride in what we do. Credit is an awesome tool for efficient use of capital. Like any power tool, it can be extremely useful, or dangerous when misused – our job is to build products and services that offer the right balance of power and safeguards.

Our interests must remain aligned with our users and our partners: we will not profit off their misfortunes or mistakes.

A properly functioning financial system must have its “carrots and sticks”, but relying on users’ irresponsibility or forgetfulness for profits is not an acceptable way to create value.

We will work tirelessly to disclose our terms and conditions, in clear and transparent language, to help every user make an informed decision.

Hiding behind small print, “unspecified technical faults”, predatory same-as-cash debt-traps, and balloon interest schemes are not acceptable.

We make loans to those who we believe can pay us back, on time.

As we seek to align ourselves with the best interest of our users, we will not benefit from pushing someone into a state of permanent debt, or engage in predatory practices. And when we make an underwriting mistake, we will learn from it, and adjust our models as necessary instead of just "pricing in the loss.”

We enable purchasing of items that some people may see as essential, and others as indulgent. It is not for us to judge these purchases.

If we can responsibly underwrite a purchase a user wants, it is our job to do it. We have no right to tell someone what they should and should not have, only if we are willing to take the risk in helping them finance it.

We will dedicate money and time to helping educate members of our community in leading healthy financial lives.

We are not a charity, but we get involved. Apps and products only reach so far. To change the system from within, we must also go directly to the people whose lives we want to improve.