Figure Technology Solutions: The Only Blockchain Lender With AAA Ratings and $1.4 Billion in Monthly Volume Is Now Building the Fannie Mae of Tokenized Credit
Piper Sandler Global Exchange and Fintech Conference, June 3, 2026
Figure Technology Solutions used its appearance at the Piper Sandler Global Exchange and Fintech Conference to make one thing unmistakably clear: the company is no longer primarily a home equity lender. CFO Minchung Kgil spent the better part of her presentation reframing Figure as a blockchain-native capital markets infrastructure — one that is now processing $1.4 billion in monthly loan volume, growing more than 100% year-over-year, and carrying a 50% adjusted EBITDA margin. The session offered one of the more detailed public articulations yet of where Figure is taking the platform, and the ambition is considerably larger than the HELOC category it built its reputation on.
$1.4 Billion in May and Three Straight Months Above $1 Billion
The headline number arriving the morning of the conference was May origination volume of $1.4 billion, up 5% month-over-month and more than doubling on a year-over-year basis. The company has now crossed $1 billion in monthly originations for three consecutive months across its 380-plus lending partners. Kgil was careful to point investors toward the year-over-year figure as the more meaningful signal given seasonality, and the triple-digit growth rate stands as the most direct evidence that the platform model — where Figure earns ecosystem fees rather than carrying loan risk itself — is scaling in a way the prior originator-only structure could not have supported.
The AAA Moat That Took Five Years to Build
Perhaps the single most defensible competitive advantage Kgil articulated is one that cannot be replicated quickly. Figure received AAA ratings from both S&P and Moody's on its blockchain-native securitization vehicle in the summer of 2025, and Kgil stated plainly that Figure is "the only company" to have achieved that dual rating for a blockchain-native securitization structure. "It takes time, and it takes experience, and it also takes the performance of the loans to be able to get these types of ratings," she said. For any fintech or crypto-native competitor attempting to enter the tokenized credit market, this certification gap represents years of seasoning data and regulatory relationship-building that cannot be shortcut.
The securitization program dates to 2021, giving Figure over four years of demonstrated loan performance on-chain — a duration that matters enormously to institutional whole loan buyers and warehouse lenders who need to underwrite credit behavior across rate cycles. Kgil noted that Figure has remained continuously in the capital markets through Q1 2026, which she described as "a tough market for everybody," without pulling back its securitization or whole loan sale programs. That kind of through-cycle consistency is exactly what ratings agencies and institutional buyers require before committing capital at scale.
The Cost Engine: $1,000 to Originate vs. $11,000 at a Traditional Bank
Kgil offered a concrete illustration of why Figure's technology stack is creating genuine greenfield lending opportunity rather than simply displacing incumbents on price. A credit union originating a $50,000 home equity loan through traditional channels faces approximately $11,000 in origination costs, making the economics unworkable at that loan size. Figure's cost to originate is under $1,000. The practical consequence is that borrowers who would previously have been turned away — because the economics did not justify the paperwork — can now access capital through Figure's partner network. "Our partners would not turn you away because they're using our ecosystem and the tech stack," Kgil explained. Combined with a closing timeline of five to ten days versus the industry standard of 45 days, the operational proposition for partner lenders is straightforward.
Democratized Prime: The Warehouse Facility That Doesn't Require a Bank
The most consequential product development discussed at the conference is one that has received relatively little attention: Democratized Prime, Figure's decentralized short-term warehouse lending facility. Kgil described the problem it solves with precision. Today, any loan originator seeking a warehouse line must spend months and significant legal fees negotiating with a bank, and even renewals require substantial underwriting effort. Democratized Prime allows an originator to plug into Figure's blockchain ecosystem in a matter of weeks, obtain short-term warehouse financing sourced from real-world asset protocols on networks like Solana, and eventually graduate to longer-term whole loan sales or securitization once their asset class has sufficient market infrastructure.
The auto loan partnership with Agora Data, announced in February 2026, is the first live demonstration of the model applied to a non-HELOC asset class. Auto lending already has a mature securitization market and an established base of whole loan buyers, making it a natural on-ramp. Kgil positioned SMB loans, receivables, investment property loans, and construction loans as subsequent candidates, all sharing the key characteristic of tangible collateral that can be validated and recorded on-chain. The long-term vision is to make Figure Connect and Democratized Prime together function as what Kgil explicitly compared to the GSE infrastructure: "essentially what Figure is doing in terms of the capital markets infrastructure" — a standardized, liquid pipeline for non-agency credit that did not previously exist in this form.
YLDS Stablecoin: A Yield-Bearing Settlement Layer Built for Corporate Treasurers
Figure's YLDS token, registered with the SEC as a face amount certificate and therefore classified as a debt security rather than a passive stablecoin, is positioned as the settlement layer for the entire ecosystem. Currently yielding SOFR minus 35 basis points and freely transferable peer-to-peer, YLDS solves a friction point that blockchain-based finance has consistently run into: the 2-to-3-day settlement lag associated with conventional banking rails. Kgil also flagged a regulatory tailwind that deserves attention from investors watching the CLARITY Act. If the legislation passes with language prohibiting yield on passive stablecoin holdings, YLDS — structured as a security — would be exempt from that restriction, potentially making it the only compliant yield-bearing stablecoin available to corporate treasury buyers. "Treasurers want to be able to hold stablecoin, but they think about: is this something that is actually yielding and I don't want to lock up my cash on something that's not yielding," she noted.
Open Platform: Tokenizing Equity 24/7 With Real-Time Cap Table Visibility
Less developed but directionally interesting is Figure's Open platform, launched in February 2026, which tokenizes equity natively on the blockchain — starting with Figure's own shares. The capability enables 24/7 trading, peer-to-peer equity lending, and what Kgil described as real-time cap table transparency for issuers: the ability to see who holds your equity without waiting for quarterly 13F filings. While the practical institutional adoption timeline for tokenized equity remains uncertain, the infrastructure is live and Figure is using itself as the first test case, which is either a sign of conviction or a hedge against the chicken-and-egg problem that has historically slowed tokenization adoption.
Revenue Mix and Margin Trajectory
Kgil disclosed that ecosystem fees — the revenue Figure earns from volume processed through its marketplace rather than from originating and holding loans itself — already represent approximately 50% of total revenue. The stated goal is for that figure to become "the vast majority" of the revenue mix over the next several years, consistent with the platform-company margin profile the company is clearly targeting. At a 50% adjusted EBITDA margin today, Figure is already running at a level that most fintech companies spend years promising and rarely deliver. Kgil indicated that contribution margins on incremental marketplace volume are high, suggesting operating leverage should support margin expansion as Democratized Prime and additional asset classes are layered in. She declined to offer specific five-year financial targets but was unambiguous that profitability and high margins are expected to persist.
Regulatory Tailwinds, But Not Dependent on Them
Kgil was measured on the regulatory question, noting that "Figure has really thrived and grown in any regulatory environment or any administration." The company holds origination and servicing licenses across all U.S. states, operates a registered broker-dealer, and has received SEC acknowledgment on multiple products over the past several years — none of which required the current administration's more favorable posture toward tokenization. The tailwind from growing institutional awareness of tokenization and the pending stablecoin legislation is welcomed, but the underlying compliance infrastructure was built under less hospitable conditions. That regulatory durability, alongside the AAA securitization ratings and the state licensing footprint, constitutes a barrier to entry that the newer cohort of crypto-native real-world asset platforms has not yet had the time or the loan performance history to replicate.