MPower Financing, which had been growing since 2014 by tapping bond markets to fund loans for international students, has largely shuttered after losing access to fresh financing. A person with direct knowledge of the firm’s lending strategy said its concentration of loans to Zimbabwean students had grown beyond what the company intended, leaving it especially vulnerable after the Trump administration added Zimbabwe to a partial travel-ban list last year.
Student lender Mpower collapses after immigration crackdown
MPower Financing, a US lender specializing in loans to international students, has largely shuttered its operations after losing access to fresh financing, becoming one of the most significant corporate collapses triggered by the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.
Why it matters: The collapse shows immigration enforcement flowing through into credit markets: Mpower's loan book was heavily concentrated in borrowers from African nations, particularly Zimbabwe, which the US added to a partial travel-ban list last year.
Data as of Bloomberg, October 7, 2026, 6:30 AM EDT. Single source and paywalled: only the published headline, byline, image caption, and AI-takeaways lede were readable; figures on loan book size, losses, and investor names were not independently verified.
Sources
- Student Lender Collapses as Immigrant Crackdown Roils Loan Book · Bloomberg · 2026-10-07