Came across this article from the Smart Data Collective about some start-ups seeking to disrupt the credit scoring marketplace by using non-traditional data sources to grade your creditworthiness:

Neo Finance, for example, is a Palo Alto based lender for auto loan borrowers. Instead of using the conventional FICO scores to assess the credit worthiness of the borrower, Neo Finance looks at the applicant’s job history and the quality of their connections on LinkedIn to assess their loan worthiness.

And here is another company that uses thousands of data points:

Take the example of ZestFinance. This company makes use of all kinds of data to assess the loan worthiness of a customer. The company is co-founded by Google’s former Chief Information Officer and considers all data about a customer as credit data. The company uses technology that analyzes thousands of variables including factors like the number of times a debtor has moved house, how well they use capitalization on a web form, etc. to build a profile of an applicant that assesses the risk in a much more efficient way than a FICO score does.

So, yes, any tracks you leave behind on the web may become fair game for credit scoring games int the future so be sure to get your spelling, punctuation and capitalization right!

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Ask your students what they think about these new methods to assess creditworthiness and how they are trying to compensate for the shortcomings of the existing credit scoring methodologies.

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

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