FedEx and Stripe strike data-sharing deal to underwrite small business financing from shipment activity

FedEx Dataworks and Stripe have entered a long-term strategic partnership aimed at giving small and mid-sized businesses access to financing based on their actual shipping and fulfillment activity rather than conventional credit history alone, the companies said.

Under the arrangement, which the companies said will begin informing financing decisions in early 2027, FedEx will supply supply-chain signals — shipment volume, inventory movement and fulfillment performance — into Stripe Capital's underwriting process. The premise is that a business's shipping patterns can reveal demand and operational health faster than a credit bureau file updates, which the companies argue could support quicker and more tailored funding offers than traditional credit-based models.

Separately, FedEx will integrate Stripe to handle payment processing across its own checkouts, adding more than 50 new local payment methods globally. That half of the deal is a more conventional infrastructure swap: more payment options at checkout typically reduce abandonment for international or alternative-payment-preferring customers, independent of the financing component.

The data-sharing piece is the more novel bet. Using logistics data as an underwriting input is not new in trade finance, but pairing a carrier's first-party shipment data directly with a payments company's lending arm at this scale is a more direct version of the model than most existing supply-chain financing products attempt. Neither company disclosed projected loan volume or specific underwriting criteria ahead of the 2027 start date.