EFL merges with Lenddo
The two companies have joined forces to offer a suite of credit scoring and identity verification products.
Psychometric credit scoring company Entrepreneurial Finance Lab (EFL) has merged with alternative credit score provider Lenddo, reports at Finovate (Banking Technology’s sister company).
EFL and Lenddo have joined forces to offer a suite of credit scoring and identity verification products.
Both companies share a mission of “providing financial inclusion for more than one billion new and underserved individuals across the globe”. The new, combined company’s products will be available in more than 20 emerging markets, enabling lenders in those markets to offer citizens access to financial products and tools. Because of limited financial data and credit history availability, access to financial products has been previously unavailable to this underserved group.
“This merger will allow us to apply the right data at the right time on a per client basis, allowing people to use their digital profiles and personality traits to increase their financial options.
“Financial institutions across emerging markets will be able to predict risk like never before through the combination of our data sources and innovative risk modeling techniques,” says Jared Miller, CEO of EFL.
Each company has facilitated more than 5 million credit assessments since launching – EFL in 2010 and Lenddo in 2011 – and have individually helped more than 50 financial institutions to disburse more than $2 billion in credit to people with limited information.
The combined company will serve individuals and small businesses (SMEs) by offering banks, telcos, retailers, microfinance institutions, and insurers access to global data as well as machine learning and risk modeling techniques. Borrowers have the ability to choose if and when lenders use their psychometric, social media, and mobile phone data to underwrite risk.
The two entities will operate independently at first and will announce further changes over the next few months. The companies anticipate a name change will “most likely” happen, and expect to announce a branding decision in early 2018. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
The first joint product offering has recently gone live in Asia and Latin America. Additional products and features will be announced in the “coming months”.
EFL is headquartered in Bermuda. Last year, it teamed with FICO to enhance the its credit scoring methodology.
