US fintech pioneer’s start-up in Kenya

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

xxx

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

xxx

Comments

Websec Canada: Launching replay attacks against the Wells Fargo Wallet service

xxx This white paper is a shortened version of the actual research. Unfortunately, the exploitation bug is not fixed yet. The company was notified and informed about the issue. However, the bug is not fixable (at the moment). From Websec Canada: Launching replay attacks against the Wells Fargo Wallet service . xxx

There is no excuse for not taking cards

So we went to the pub. For lunch. Seven of us. Say £20 per head. £100+ quid. Say £50 quid gross for the pub. Colleague goes to order food and drinks and pay at the bar. Apologetic barmaid comes over to explain that their “card machine” is down, so she can only accept cash. Under normal circumstances I would have simply walked out, feeling it wholly inappropriate to reward such a poorly managed establishment and, as a functioning actor in a capitalist economy, done my duty to depress their lunchtime takings. Here’s what we wanted to say: This is absurd. This is 2016 not 1916. Your card machine is down? Well, so what! Are you seriously telling me that mein host has no mobile phone number capable of registering for PingIt or PayM? That none of the staff or the pub itself have a PayPal account that I can send the money to? That neither the owners nor managers not contingency planners thought to tuck an iZettle behind the bar to use when the clunky and expensive GPRS terminal fails for o...

Snippets

Search This Blog