The continuing rollout of innovative financial services for those with limited, or no, access to banks is also inspiring all sorts of innovation, including a concept that its originator Juvo calls Financial Identity as a Service (FiDaaS).
US company Juvo, which describes itself as a pioneer of financial identities for the underbanked, explains that FiDaaS is a technology suite that builds financial identities by utilizing alternative data sources, along with incremental data generated from direct-to-consumer lending. These financial identities allow the estimated 3.9 billion people around the world without a credit history to qualify for financial services from financial institutions and merchants.
The Juvo offering builds these identities from the mobile telecom services that many unbanked people use. Although subscribers pay with cash, purchases of mobile services create a history of financial transactions that are recorded digitally and associated with a single person. Working with mobile operators, financial institutions and merchants, Juvo is able to access a wealth of alternative data in the form of everyday mobile transactions and interactions and use machine learning technology to establish financial identities.
Over time, credit is extended and a potentially wider range of financial services is provided – and with them a more detailed financial profile. This not only brings financial services to many consumers but opens new revenue streams for mobile operators, expands the addressable market for financial institutions and allows merchants to serve more consumers and experience fewer abandoned or declined transactions.
Juvo says its FiDaaS platform currently updates 5.6 billion data points every single day for 200 million consumers on four continents.
