Meet the New First Access

Last year, First Access hit a turning point. A string of successes had our inboxes overflowing, but we couldn’t scale fast enough to change emerging market credit. We were turning data into financial opportunity, but not for everyone. Our credit scoring platform needed to be easier to use and more affordable. Our innovation was literally too disruptive.

So we decided to fix it.

In the emerging markets where we work, most financial institutions have thin data on their customers and staff. That thin data means they have little evidence to inform radical decisions, so it’s hard to grow faster. (To be fair, the data doesn’t always tell clear stories — but you’ll never know if it’s all on paper.) After extensive analysis comparing external data sources to “internal” data collected by financial institutions themselves, we had confirmed that internal data was the most important asset for achieving efficiencies and growth with credit scoring. But most of that internal data remains on paper. Without better digital data, we couldn’t help institutions grow faster.

Read the full article here.