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US fintech pioneer’s start-up in Kenya — FT.com

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InVenture, which is based in Santa Monica, California, but operates in Kenya, uses a mobile phone app to scrape data off a person’s mobile phone to give them a “financial identity”, as Ms Siroya puts it. The data range from mobile money spending patterns and calling and travel routines, to the way contacts are organised: for instance repayment of a loan is more likely by someone whose contacts are listed with both first and second names.

“We picked the smartphone data [as the basis for their financial identity] because we felt that was the closest proxy to someone’s daily life,” says the 32-year-old.

The company then issues uncollateralised loans to those who pass the algorithm’s benchmark

From US fintech pioneer’s start-up in Kenya — FT.com

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