Dealflow | April 1, 2016

Using Cell Phone Data to Establish Credit Scores in Latin America

ImpactAlpha
The team at

ImpactAlpha

First-time borrowers face a classic chicken or the egg dilemma: a borrower needs a good credit score to get a loan but needs a track record of repaying loans to establish a good credit score.

Increasingly though, another, more ubiquitous measure of creditworthiness is all consumers will need: their cell phone data. In Latin America, for example, nearly 400 million people own a cell phone, while 250 million remain unbanked.

Credit analytics startup, Cambridge, MA-based Cignifi will partner with Equifax to offer Predictor Inclusion Scores to millions of consumers. Equifax, the consumer credit reporting agency based in Atlanta will use Cignifi’s behavioral scoring technology. The program will roll out first in Chile, within several weeks.

Cignifi has backing from U.S.-based venture investors and the Omidyar Network. Jonathan Hakim, CEO and founder of Cignifi, said the partnership will help add “a new pool of viable customers to the consumer credit market in the region.”

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Photo source: Cignifi