Payoff.com Transforms Personal Financial Management with First Ever Social Community for Your Finances

LOS ANGELES, June 28, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- With effects of the Great Recession lingering in a personal debt crisis, a home foreclosure crisis and widespread unemployment, today Payoff.com is launching a free social finance site offering consumers a fun and engaging way to pay off their debt, meet their savings goals and fulfill their financial dreams.  With $3.5 million in capital investment led by FirstMark Capital, Payoff.com offers consumers a positive new alternative to view and interact with their finances.

(Logo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110628/LA27422LOGO)

"Debt steals dreams," said Scott Saunders, CEO and Founder of Payoff.com. "With trillions in consumer debt, a lot of dreams are being lost.  Spreadsheets, pie charts and line-by-line budgets are great for financial analysts but suck for the average American. Payoff.com offers debt ridden consumers a way to get a better handle on the big picture and a clear path to pay off their debt, meet their savings goals and fulfill their financial dreams."

Today in America there is more than $14 trillion in consumer debt including mortgages.  Nearly 25% of Americans have negative equity in their homes and more than 2 million people have negative equity greater than 50 percent or are at least $150,000 "upside down."  More than half of Americans carry unpaid balances on their credit cards that average $16,000 and the average student loan debt for graduating seniors has risen to $24,000.

Payoff.com is "just what American consumers need today: a simple, practical and fun way to manage finances and actually achieve personal financial goals," said Phillip Riese, former President of American Express and a Payoff.com Advisor.

Payoff has built a unique Personal Financial Management and financial account aggregation utility that addresses the unmet needs of a wide cross-section of American consumers compared to competing personal finance websites. Unlike other sites, Payoff.com allows users to share dreams, goals and accomplishments with their friends and garner their support, earn badges and win prizes like a game, and view their historical spending categorized by major merchants like Safeway, Starbucks, Old Navy, Target, and Victoria's Secret.  Payoff.com's Scientific Advisory Board, led by Dr. Galen Buckwalter, Founder and Chief Scientist of eHarmony, is helping translate the most cutting edge findings in neuroeconomics into Payoff's product and pioneering the first definitive approach to help people understand their unique financial personality.

"Payoff is leading a paradigm shift in making personal financial management more approachable to a wider array of people," said Bill Cvengros, Former CEO of PIMCO Advisors and a Payoff.com investor. 

Payoff.com has secured funding from an all-star list of angel investors including Betsy Bernard, former President of AT&T, Kai Huang, Founder of Guitar Hero, Jim Nordstrom, former President of Nordstrom, David Solomon, Global Co-Head of Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs, and several other angel investors.

About Payoff

Help has arrived! Payoff.com has turned the drudgery of personal financial management into something simple, social and fun. Payoff helps individuals take control of their financial destinies as a means to achieve goals and fulfill dreams.  Payoff's product allows its users to share dreams, set financial goals like paying off a credit card or saving to start a business, and track their financial picture without pie-charts, spreadsheets or data-entry.  Payoff.com also offers practical tools to help its users  quickly achieve goals and rewards progress with badges and cash prizes to motivate its users.  Payoff was founded in 2009 in Los Angeles, California.  For more information, visit www.payoff.com.  

SOURCE Payoff.com