Business

How City Creek Mortgage Helps Its Clients Achieve the Lowest Possible Mortgage Rates

Published

5 years ago

March 13, 2021

The housing market has been booming lately, which means a lot of prospective homeowners are looking for mortgage providers. When taking out a mortgage, one of the most crucial things to look at is the interest rate. Most mortgages last either 15 or 30 years, so even small differences in the interest rate can add up.

Mike “Mortgage Mike” Roberts, co-founder and president of City Creek Mortgage, understands the ins and outs of mortgages, including how getting the lowest rate possible is a top priority. He started City Creek Mortgage over 20 years ago, with the goal of creating better options for everyone hoping to buy a home using a loan.

Roberts explained his goals when he said, “I want our clients to know they can trust us to always be looking out for them. We’re going to help get the best interest rates because we know how much that can do to help your family build a stable financial position.”

Through Mike’s efforts to create a better mortgage experience for customers, he’s learned how to get the best rates possible for clients — here’s how he does it:

Cutting Out the Commission

If you’ve ever taken out a home loan before, chances are your loan officer was paid on commission. Chances are if any of your family and friends who’ve purchased a home with a mortgage also worked with a loan officer who was paid on commission.

The mortgage industry has run off of commission-based employees for decades.

This means that loan officers’ compensation is tied to whether or not they can push you forward to close a loan, even if it’s not the best option for you. In some circumstances, commission-based system incentives loan officers to encourage people to take larger loans than needed or to take loans with bad interest rates.

In order to ensure customers are getting good loans with the best rates, City Creek Mortgage pays loan officers on salary. This allows these loan officers to give optimal advice to clients because their incomes aren’t dependent on selling clients on loans with huge amounts of interest.

Said Roberts, “We want to help our customers build a solid financial future. So, no, our loan officers wouldn’t try to upsell a customer on a larger loan because we know it’s not in the customer’s best interest. We don’t want to make money by squeezing every penny out of each customer. We want to make money by earning trust and loyalty from each of our clients.”

Prioritizing Clients Over Profits

Many people don’t understand all the details about loans and interest rates. Interest rates change often. Because of this, it’s easy for lenders to take advantage of people who haven’t taken the time to shop around for different mortgages or researched how to get the lowest possible rate.

It benefits the lenders to offer higher rates because it means you’ll end up paying more in interest, however, this practice ends up causing unnecessary financial strain on clients. City Creek Mortgage believes in prioritizing clients’ needs over earning more money.

Roberts spoke about the way the company functions:

“We’re a client-for-life company. That means we want our clients to be happy with what we offer in the long-term. We want to earn their trust and treat them like family. We believe in walking away from money rather than walking away from good people. We apply this principle to both our employees and to our clients.”

With clients, rather than profit, in mind, City Creek Mortgage may occasionally earn a smaller profit, but they make up for it by retaining clients and building a strong reputation as a company that can be trusted.

Understanding Clients’ Individual Needs

City Creek Mortgage is a close-knit, family-style company.

Roberts explained the nature of the company culture, stating, “We believe in taking care of each other and our clients. In fact, we believe in that principle so strongly, it’s one of our five core values. Because we want to take care of individuals, we look into what types of mortgages will best suit their needs.”

City Creek Mortgage speaks with clients about their unique situations in order to advise on the type of loan that is best for them. Not everyone knows that some aspects of home loans are flexible. Some clients will opt for a no-cost mortgage so they can save money on closing costs. Others will opt for a low-cost mortgage in order to get the lowest possible rate.

There are benefits to both low-cost and no-cost mortgages and each person’s unique situation will determine which is the best fit for them. The emphasis on seeing clients as individuals at City Creek Mortgage helps the team to advise each client on the best option for them.

Sometimes clients will come to City Creek Mortgage looking for a second opinion on the loan they’ve been offered from a different lender. Because the company cares more about helping people find the best possible loan for their situation, sometimes they tell potential clients that their lender is already giving them a great deal.

For City Creek Mortgage, giving the best advice possible is more important than making a sale, especially if that sale is not in the best interest of the client. By doing this, they’re able to build lifelong relationships with clients.

Business

Inside the $4.3B Quarter: What’s Fueling Black Banx’s Record Revenues

Published

4 days ago

January 16, 2026

Matthew Wiles

Every quarter brings fresh headlines in fintech, but few make the kind of impact achieved by Black Banx in Q2 2025. The Toronto-based global digital banking group, founded by Michael Gastauer, reported an extraordinary USD 4.3 billion in revenue and a record USD 1.6 billion in pre-tax profit, while improving its cost-to-income ratio to 63%.

These results not only highlight the company’s operational efficiency but also mark a pivotal moment in its journey from challenger to global leader. The big question is: what’s fueling such impressive financial performance?

Customer Growth as the Core Driver

One of the clearest engines of revenue growth is Black Banx’s expanding customer base. By Q2 2025, the platform had reached 84 million clients worldwide, up from 69 million at the end of 2024. This 15 million net gain in six months demonstrates both the attractiveness of its services and the scalability of its model.

Unlike traditional banks, which rely heavily on branch expansion, Black Banx leverages digital-first onboarding that allows customers to open accounts within minutes using just a smartphone. This approach is especially effective in regions underserved by legacy institutions, where access to affordable financial tools is in high demand.

More customers don’t just mean higher transaction volumes—they generate a compounding effect where network size, brand trust, and service adoption reinforce one another.

Real-Time Payments and Cross-Border Solutions

A major contributor to Q2 revenues is the platform’s real-time payments infrastructure. Black Banx enables instant cross-border transfers across its 28 supported fiat currencies and multiple cryptocurrencies, helping both individuals and businesses bypass the traditional bottlenecks of international banking.

For freelancers, SMEs, and multinational clients, this means faster liquidity, reduced foreign exchange costs, and simplified global operations. The demand for real-time financial services is growing rapidly—Juniper Research projects global real-time payments turnover to hit USD 58 trillion by 2028—and Black Banx is strategically positioned to capture a significant share of this market.

Crypto Integration as a Revenue Stream

Another key revenue driver is crypto integration. While many traditional institutions remain hesitant, Black Banx embraced digital assets early and has built infrastructure to support Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the Lightning Network. In Q2 2025, 20% of all transactions on the platform were crypto-based, reflecting strong customer appetite for hybrid banking services that bridge fiat and digital assets.

Revenue comes not only from transaction fees but also from value-added services like crypto-to-fiat conversion, staking yields (4–12% APY), and blockchain-enabled payments. For customers in markets with unstable currencies, these services act as a financial lifeline, further expanding the platform’s relevance.

AI-Powered Efficiency and Risk Management

Record revenues would be less impressive if costs ballooned at the same rate. But Black Banx has proven adept at balancing growth with efficiency. Its cost-to-income ratio improved to 63% in Q2, down from 69% a year earlier, thanks to heavy reliance on AI-powered automation.

AI now drives fraud detection, compliance, and customer onboarding—areas where traditional banks often struggle with cost inefficiencies. By automating these processes, Black Banx can process millions of transactions securely while maintaining profitability at scale. This level of efficiency is rare in fintech, where high growth often comes at the expense of margins.

Regional Expansion and Untapped Markets

Geography also plays a role in fueling revenues. Much of the Q2 growth came from Africa, South Asia, and Latin America—regions where demand for mobile-first banking continues to soar. In 2024 alone, Black Banx reported a 32% increase in SME clients from the Middle East and Africa, signaling the strength of its positioning in underserved markets.

By extending services to populations previously excluded from formal banking—migrant workers, rural communities, and small businesses—Black Banx taps into vast pools of latent demand. The strategy proves that financial inclusion and profitability are not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing.

Diversified Revenue Streams

Another factor behind Q2’s record revenues is Black Banx’s diversified business model. Income is not tied to a single service but spread across multiple streams, including:

Transaction fees from cross-border transfers and payments.
Crypto trading and exchange services.
Premium account features for high-net-worth clients.
Corporate services for SMEs and international businesses.

This diversification insulates the company against volatility in any single segment, creating stable revenue growth even in shifting market conditions.

Michael Gastauer’s Strategic Blueprint

Behind these results is Michael Gastauer’s long-term strategy: scale aggressively but with efficiency, innovation, and inclusion at the core. His vision has always been to create a borderless financial ecosystem, and Q2 2025’s performance is evidence that this vision is not only achievable but sustainable.

By balancing mass-market accessibility with premium features, and by blending fiat with digital assets, Gastauer has positioned Black Banx as a category-defining player in global finance.

The Road Ahead: Toward 100 Million Clients

Looking forward, the company’s goal of reaching 100 million customers by the end of 2025 will likely be the next catalyst for revenue growth. More customers mean more transactions, more data insights, and more opportunities to refine and expand its service offering.

If current momentum holds, the USD 4.3 billion quarterly revenue milestone could be just the beginning of an even larger growth story. The challenge will be ensuring systems scale securely while maintaining trust in an environment where privacy and compliance are paramount.

A Record That Signals More to Come

Black Banx’s Q2 2025 performance—USD 4.3 billion in revenue, USD 1.6 billion in pre-tax profit, 84 million clients worldwide, and a lean 63% cost-to-income ratio—is more than a financial milestone. It is a signal of how the future of banking is being rewritten by platforms that are borderless, crypto-inclusive, and data-driven.

What fueled this record-breaking quarter is not one innovation but a combination of strategies—scalable onboarding, real-time payments, crypto integration, AI efficiency, and expansion into underserved regions. Together, they form a model that doesn’t just challenge traditional banking but actively builds the foundation for global dominance.

For Black Banx, the road ahead is clear: the $4.3 billion quarter is not an endpoint but a launchpad for even greater scale and profitability.