Fluence Score

Roughly 45 million Americans lack a credit score due to no credit history or thin credit files without enough information to evaluate their creditworthiness.

We aim to use the digital footprint to profile financial behavior to deploy a new scoring method. Our goal is to deploy a fair and inclusive system that helps consumers who lack enough financial transactions to have a score and a more reliable method for financial institutions to help them diminish credit card delinquency rates. 

Access to quality credit is a significant challenge for many consumers, particularly those who are credit invisible or unscorable. These consumers, who comprise nearly 20 percent of the U.S. adult population, face a range of issues, from securing basic financial services to leasing an apartment. Unfortunately, low-income neighborhoods and communities of color are disproportionately affected by this issue. Black and Hispanic consumers are considerably more likely to be credit invisible or have unscored credit records than White or Asian consumers.

Our product seeks to address this inequality by providing access to essential financial services. By empowering credit invisible and unscorable consumers with the tools they need to establish credit and build a positive credit history, we can help families improve their living conditions and achieve their financial goals. Through our efforts, we aim to level the playing field and create a more equitable financial system for all.

We have technical and business founders, who complement themselves regarding skillset and knowledge on the problem area.

We already have a functional prototype. You can check it at https://jpcoutinho.pythonanywhere.com/

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Our goal is to create a technology-driven solution that will provide access to financial services for low-income communities where traditional options are unavailable. With the support of Solve's innovative ecosystem and impact-driven leaders, we are confident that we can achieve a transformative impact in these underserved communities. By leveraging technology and collaboration, we believe we can empower individuals and families to achieve financial stability and create a brighter future for themselves and their communities.

Our cutting-edge technology harnesses the power of A.I. models, including NLP and transformers, to create accurate psychological profiles from users' digital footprints. By analyzing patterns in online behavior, our algorithms can generate precise estimates of personality traits, mental health, and intelligence. Our approach is grounded in the Big Five personality model, the most extensively studied model of personality, which allows us to capture individual differences in how people think, feel, and behave.

With our advanced technology and expertise, we're not just reimagining credit scoring; we're transforming it. Instead of relying on traditional credit histories, we're using a holistic approach to assess individuals' financial behavior based on their unique psychological profile. By gaining a deeper understanding of our customers as humans, we can provide tailored support and services that help them reach their full potential. With perfect timing for such a development, we're poised to disrupt the financial industry and create meaningful impact in people's lives.

To achieve our impact goals over the next five years, we have identified several key milestones that we aim to reach. These include:

1. Conducting extensive research to develop and refine our personality-based credit scoring model: We will need to conduct extensive research to identify the most relevant personality traits and develop a scoring model that accurately predicts creditworthiness. This will require collecting and analyzing large amounts of data from a diverse range of individuals and demographics.
2. Validation of our scoring model: Once our scoring model is developed, we will need to build and test the system to ensure that it is accurate and effective. This will require significant investment in technology and resources.
3. Partnering with financial institutions to pilot our solution: To achieve broad impact, we will need to partner with financial institutions to pilot our solution and integrate it into their existing credit scoring systems. This will require significant marketing and sales efforts to secure these partnerships.
4. Ensuring regulatory compliance: As with any new financial product or service, regulatory compliance will be critical to our success. We will need to work closely with regulators to ensure that our solution meets all relevant legal and regulatory requirements.
5. Measuring impact and refining our approach: Finally, we will need to measure the impact of our solution and refine our approach over time based on feedback from customers, partners, and regulators. This will require ongoing investment in data analytics and continuous improvement of our technology.

By achieving these milestones, we believe that we can make significant progress toward our goal of transforming the credit scoring methodology and creating a more inclusive and equitable financial system.

Measuring progress towards our impact goals is crucial to ensuring that we are on track and making a meaningful difference. Here are a few key ways that we can measure our progress:

1. Adoption rate: One key metric is the adoption rate of our new credit scoring system by financial institutions. By tracking how many institutions are using our system, we can get a sense of the impact we are having in the industry.
2. Improved access to credit: We can also measure the number of previously underserved individuals who are now able to access credit thanks to our new system. This will require tracking data on loan applications and approvals, as well as credit utilization rates.
3. Reduction in discrimination: One of our key goals is to reduce discrimination in the credit scoring process. We can measure progress towards this goal by tracking changes in approval rates for traditionally underserved populations, as well as changes in default rates and other credit-related outcomes.
4. Customer feedback: Finally, we can measure progress by collecting feedback from customers who have used our new credit scoring system. By soliciting feedback on their experience and satisfaction, we can make improvements to the system and ensure that it is meeting their needs.

By tracking these metrics and other relevant indicators, we can get a sense of how well we are progressing towards our impact goals and make necessary adjustments along the way.

Our theory is to change the methodology currently used to define creditworthiness. By taking advantage of the improvements in NLP, which allows us to apply behavioral theories, we can precisely assess user's behaviors and needs. By creating a more fair and inclusive system, we will help minorities and low-income populations to have access to basic banking services.

At the heart of our solution is an innovative technology known as transformers - a type of cutting-edge AI specifically designed for natural language processing (NLP). With its unprecedented ability to understand the complex relationships between words and phrases, transformers represent a game-changing breakthrough in analyzing digital footprints and understanding user behavior.

By harnessing the power of transformers, our solution can accurately predict behavior from text data, enabling us to gain a deeper understanding of our users and provide them with more personalized and relevant experiences. This revolutionary technology allows us to go beyond surface-level insights and delve into the nuanced patterns and correlations that drive behavior. With the limitless possibilities of transformers, we are excited to be at the forefront of this groundbreaking field and lead the charge in transforming the way we analyze and utilize digital footprints.

Our team has diversity in its DNA. Our CEO and Founder is a woman, and our CTO and Co-Founder is a black man. We are all Brazilians from underprivileged backgrounds, so we understand the importance of representativity, diversity, and inclusion in a company. During our scale-up phase, we'll be looking for people like us - diverse not only through a demographic point of view but in terms of mindset and skillset - to be part of our team.

The business model for our credit scoring system could include a few different revenue streams:

1. Charging financial institutions: We could charge financial institutions a fee for accessing our credit scoring system. This fee could be based on the number of credit reports requested or the number of customers using our system.
2. Providing value-added services: We could offer value-added services, such as credit counseling or financial education, to customers. We could charge a fee for these services or offer them as a premium feature for customers who pay a subscription fee.
3. Data licensing: We could license our data to other companies or organizations that could benefit from it, such as marketing firms or researchers. This could be a way to generate additional revenue while still maintaining the privacy and security of our customers' data.
4. Partnerships: We could partner with other companies or organizations to offer co-branded credit products or other financial services. This could provide us with additional revenue streams while also expanding our reach and customer base.

Overall, our business model would need to be carefully designed to balance our mission of developing an inclusive credit scoring system with our financial goals of generating revenue and achieving financial sustainability.

1. Revenue model: By a revenue model that generates enough income to cover our costs and eventually turn a profit. One possible revenue model for our credit scoring system could be charging financial institutions a fee for using our system or providing value-added services like credit counseling or financial education to customers.
2. Partnerships: We can also explore strategic partnerships with other companies or organizations that share our mission and vision. For example, partner with a financial education organization to provide additional resources to our customers or partner with a bank to offer co-branded credit products.
3. Cost management: It's important to keep our costs under control to ensure that we are not spending more than we are bringing in. This means carefully managing our expenses, negotiating favorable contracts with vendors, and continually looking for ways to streamline our operations.
4. Continuous innovation: Finally, we need to continue innovating and evolving our product to stay ahead of the competition and meet the changing needs of our customers. This may require investing in research and development or hiring additional staff with specialized skills or expertise.

By pursuing these strategies and continually evaluating our financial performance, we can work towards achieving financial sustainability and ensuring the long-term success of our product.