Although they monitor social media for marketing, using the data to assess loan applicants is "a dangerous game" that big banks are ducking for now, says Frank Eliason, head of social media for Citibank.
In a recent two-month span, Lending Club raised its loan rates twice: Once caused by a rise in the U.S. Federal Reserve System rate, and once more in order to assess loan risks more precisely.
Grab plans to assess loan recipients and insurance candidates using a mixture of signals that could include their driving style, which Thompson said it can track using telemetrics from a driver's device.
Elevate, a venture-backed company that uses big data to assess loan applications from people with low credit scores, has been called out as a predatory lender, including in Fortune last year.
With state banks unwilling (or untrained) to assess loan risk at smaller businesses, these enterprises must often turn to this other network for guarantees as well as collateral and financing of receivables.
If the DAC assessed loans against these interest rates, it would impose a much tougher – and more realistic – qualification test for aid.
Banks that finance infrastructure projects such as power stations, pipelines, dams and mines, have to account for a number of risks when assessing loans but human rights has been noticeably absent.
It has been reported the FSA will call on lenders to consider the way they assesses loans to borrowers who wish to move home, but due to falling house prices and tightened lending criteria no longer have enough equity to secure a mortgage.
The biggest new entrants, the banks, have come in mainly by buying stakes in consumer-lending companies, which have an expertise in assessing loan risk that far outstrips their own.What is bad for the consumer lenders could, despite their market power, be bad for consumers too.
Japan's financial regulators have begun to force the biggest banks to assess their loan books more honestly and tackle more of their bad loans.
