This Year, The Second Largest US Mortgage Lender will Accept Cryptocurrency Payments

United Wholesale Mortgage CEO Mat Ishbia announced plans to accept cryptocurrency payments starting with Bitcoin this year during a conference call about the company’s second-quarter earnings.

The Second Largest US Mortgage Lender will accept Cryptocurrency Payments

United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), the second-largest mortgage lender in the United States, plans to accept cryptocurrency payments starting with Bitcoin this year (BTC).

On Monday, UWM CEO Mat Ishbia unveiled the crypto intentions during a conference call to discuss the firm’s Q2 results, which included a $138.7 million net profit.

“We’re excited that hopefully (this year) we can actually execute on that before anyone in the country,” Ishbia said.

On Aug. 16, Ishbia told the Detroit Free Press that the change will most likely happen later this quarter or at the start of Q4, adding, “I think we’re starting with Bitcoin, but we’re looking at Ethereum and others.”

We’re going to walk before we run, but at the same time, we are definitely a leader in technology and innovation and we are always trying to be the best and the leader in everything we do.

“That’s the plan. Obliviously there are no guarantees — we’re still working through some details,” the CEO added.

In 2020, UWM was the second-largest mortgage lender, with 560,798 loans totaling almost $183 billion. Quicken Loans came out on top, with $1.1 billion in loans valued at $314 billion.

The use of cryptocurrency in real estate transactions has a seven-year history, with BitPay assisting in the 2014 sale of a Lake Tahoe house for $1.6 million in BTC, but crypto mortgage repayments appear to be a relatively new phenomenon.

Matrix Mortgage Global, a Toronto-based mortgage brokerage firm, announced in April that it would take Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and various stablecoins through Bitpay for its services.

According to Cointelegraph, the People’s Party of Spain filed a legislative proposal on Aug. 4 that would allow property owners to pay their mortgages in cryptocurrencies and allow the real estate sector to utilize its own cryptocurrency for mortgage acquisitions.