Georgina Marhom says credit bureaus relying on old third-party data are only getting a small piece of the puzzle.
“Credit bureaus are very important, but when they're used to identify that someone didn't pay their bills on time, it's a punishment. If you're only after the money, you're giving away a lot of signals. You could miss something,” Marhom told TechCrunch.
Merhom uses SOLO, a first-party data collection and reporting engine that integrates user-authorized data sources such as financial transactions, online records, and digital footprints to tell a more complete story about someone's financial behavior. We want to break out of the current situation. User permission data sources provided by consumers with permission come from a variety of locations. This includes bank accounts (via Plaid, Teller, TrueLayer), commerce and payment gateways (Amazon, Shopify Square, Stripe, PayPal), invoicing systems (Quickbooks, Bill.com), and customer relationship management platforms. said Marhom.
Additionally, user-permitted data sources replace self-reporting processes, broker trust between financial institutions and consumers, and identify opportunities that banks would have missed, Marhom said. .
Marhom was originally a data scientist in the cybersecurity industry, developing and training algorithms to detect illegal activity on the dark web. This her research has taught her that different data and the context in which that data is presented can paint a more complete picture. Using her information, Mahom launched a cross-border payments app in Egypt called Zivmi, which he eventually sold to the National Bank of Egypt.
She came up with the idea for SOLO while working with unbanked freelancers at Zivmi. Using other platforms such as GitHub and her Upwork, Zivmi was able to verify a person's experience level, client ratings, and overall work history.
As the business of working with the unbanked grew, Zivmi began underwriting customers and developed the technology to do so. Marhom said it was then that he realized the need to create a new kind of credit bureau.
Building better credit bureaus or finding new ways to verify data for people with less-than-stellar credit is not a new concept. Altro makes it happen through recurring payments, Kredivo launches a neobank to help build credit, Bloom.io helps businesses create financial products and report on consumer credit trends, and Masa Finance is building a decentralized credit bureau.
Merhom and full-stack developer Luis Troni spent two years building SOLO and recently debuted SOLO to a group of hundreds of financial institutions. They are currently working on securing 100 banking pilots in the US this year, with plans to eventually secure venture capital. Marhom said some agreements were already in the works, but could not reveal more.
Their goal is to measure metrics such as reducing application processing time from up to two months to minutes, reducing costs by up to 70% and increasing value per customer.
“It costs banks $29 billion a year to process applications, and that doesn't even include what they pay to credit bureaus,” Marhom said. “If we can prove cost savings, banks can eliminate the need for loan officers to cross-reference bank statements with accounting departments and try to recalculate them. If we can make more sales, our efforts have been successful.”