In just 60 days of operation, a new investment fund in credit rights (FIDC) raised R$ 80 million and tripled the total volume of contracts at FAZ Cred.
Focused on the health and education sectors, the FAZ Cred Mais Trabalhador fund symbolizes a transformation the fintech company has undergone. Founded five years ago as Condolivre, the startup initially focused on condominium loans but decided to abandon its original niche to reorganize and accelerate its growth in private payroll loans.
The turning point came in March 2025, when the new rules for private payroll loans came into effect. The regulation allowed any worker with a formal employment contract to obtain credit directly through the government's app, in an auction of offers between financial institutions, without the need for prior agreements between companies and banks.
The change allowed for the continuation of automated payments even after a change in formal employment (reducing the risk of layoffs) and caused the portfolio of this type of loan to jump from R$ 40 billion to R$ 140 billion , according to the Central Bank and the Ministry of Labor and Employment.
For the former Condolivre – which was founded in 2021 with a seed round of R$ 13 million led by TAG Investimentos and Vila Velha Corretora, as well as angel investors – the new government rule ended the competitive advantage it maintained by closing exclusive agreements with condominiums to serve doormen and caretakers, a base of 60,000 formal workers.
Faced with the new scenario, the startup preferred to pivot completely. It practically abandoned unsecured credit for condominiums, changed its name to FAZ Cred, and broadened its scope to other sectors of the economy, betting everything on payroll loans.
“When we saw the opportunity in private payroll loans, we decided to specialize in it and operate directly. It’s a rapidly expanding market, but we believe it will require some due diligence to operate,” Henrique Rusca, CEO of FAZ Cred, told NeoFeed .
The initial idea was simply to sell the credit analysis platform to third parties so they could operate in other segments of the payroll loan market. However, the demand from investors, interested only in allocating capital, changed the company's direction.
“We had many investors knocking on our door: 'I think this business is interesting, I have capital and I'd like to allocate it.' But we would reply: 'I'll give you the car, but you have to find the driver.' And many people would say: 'No, thank you.'”
Unable to find anyone to take the helm, the company took over the entire credit chain and structured FAZ Cred Mais Trabalhador. The main investor behind the fintech's vehicles is the asset management firm Patrimonial, which has approximately R$ 1.6 billion under management, according to Anbima data, and was already a partner in the company's first condominium fund, named FAZ Cred Condolivre FIDC — which has a portfolio of R$ 160 million.
"After learning about our operation [in the first fund], they felt confident enough to launch a second vehicle focused on new markets," says the executive.
Although the new FIDC focuses on segments with higher salaries, such as healthcare and education, the average transaction size remained between R$1,500 and R$1,600, in line with the original fund. Rusca explains that this result is intentional, as the company prefers to diversify risk rather than concentrate credit in a few borrowers.
The company limits the amount that the same person can borrow repeatedly and extends the rule to the paying companies: none of them accounts for more than 1% of the portfolio.
Since the new vehicle is recent, its delinquency rate has not yet matured. In contrast, for the fund restricted to the condominium sector, with a longer history, the rate fluctuates between 10% and 15%. The company receives approximately 80% of the expected amount via direct government transfer and recovers between 5% and 10% through its own collection department.
The opening of the government auction also transformed FAZ Cred's internal operations. Although the open access for any bank caused origination to decrease compared to the period of exclusivity of the agreements, the fintech's addressable market in the condominium niche jumped from 60,000 to 400,000 workers.
To sustain origination and not rely solely on being the cheapest offer in the auction, the company utilizes its own relationship channels built over the years, artificial intelligence agents, direct customer service via WhatsApp, and internal pricing tools that have been refined since its founding.
“We conducted several price tests to find offers that would convert better in the auction. I confess that, initially, we thought it would be difficult to compete with the large banks. But condominiums are generally SMEs, they have two or three employees, and not everyone wants to specialize in this,” says Rusca.
In the new niches of operation (health and education), the CEO projects an addressable market five to ten times larger than the condominium base. According to him, the new fund is growing at twice the origination rate. FAZ Cred's next step is to continue opening new fronts, evaluating opportunities in the automotive and construction sectors.
“We like sectors with a high rate of re-employment,” points out Rusca, referring to the mechanism of maintaining discounts even when changing jobs. According to him, a high rate of layoffs in a sector, by itself, does not deter the fintech company, since it is perfectly feasible to recover the credit as soon as the worker is rehired by a new employer.
