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How much do you need
to know about a person

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before you'd feel comfortable
making a loan?

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Suppose you wanted to lend 1,000 dollars

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to the person sitting two rows behind you.

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What would you need to know
about that person

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before you'd feel comfortable?

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My mom came to the US from India
in her late thirties.

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She's a doctor in Brooklyn,

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and she often lets friends and neighbors
come to see her for health services,

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whether they can pay right away or not.

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I remember running into her patients
with her at the grocery store

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or on the sidewalk,

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and sometimes they would come
and pay her right on the spot

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for previous appointments.

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She would thank them,

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and ask them about their families
and their health.

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She gave them credit
because she trusted them.

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Most of us are like my mom.

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We would give credit to someone we know

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or that we live next to.

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But most of us are probably not
going to lend to a stranger

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unless we know a little
something about them.

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Banks, credit card companies
and other financial institutions

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don't know us on a personal level,

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but they do have a way of trusting us,

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and that's through our credit scores.

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Our credit scores have been created

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through an aggregation and analysis
of our public consumer credit data.

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And because of them, we have
pretty much easy access

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to all of the goods
and services that we need,

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from getting electricity to buying a home,

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or taking a risk and starting a business.

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But ...

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there are 2.5 billion people
around the world

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that don't have a credit score.

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That's a third of the world's population.

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They don't have a score

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because there are no formal
public records on them --

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no bank accounts,

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no credit histories

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and no social security numbers.

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And because they don't have a score,

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they don't have access
to the credit or financial products

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that can improve their lives.

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They are not trusted.

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So we wanted to find a way to build trust

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and to open up financial access
for these 2.5 billion.

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So we created a mobile application

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that builds credit scores for them
using mobile data.

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There are currently over one billion
smartphones in emerging markets.

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And people are using them
the same way that we do.

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They're texting their friends,
they're looking up directions,

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they're browsing the Internet

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and they're even making
financial transactions.

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Over time, this data is getting
captured on our phones,

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and it provides a really rich picture
of a person's life.

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Our customers give us access to this data

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and we capture it
through our mobile application.

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It helps us understand
the creditworthiness

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of people like Jenipher,
a small-business owner in Nairobi, Kenya.

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Jenipher is 65 years old, and for decades
has been running a food stall

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in the central business district.

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She has three sons who she put
through vocational school,

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and she's also the leader
of her local chama,

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or savings group.

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Jenipher's food stall does well.

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She makes just enough every day
to cover her expenses.

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But she's not financially secure.

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Any emergency could force her into debt.

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And she has no discretionary income

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to improve her family's way of living,

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for emergencies,

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or for investing
into growing her business.

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If Jenipher wants credit,
her options are limited.

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She could get a microloan,

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but she'd have to form a group
that could help vouch for her credibility.

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And even then, the loan sizes
would be way too small

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to really have an impact on her business,

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averaging around 150 dollars.

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Loan sharks are always an option,

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but with interest rates
that are well above 300 percent,

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they're financially risky.

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And because Jenipher doesn't have
collateral or a credit history,

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she can't walk into a bank
and ask for a business loan.

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But one day,

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Jenipher's son convinced her
to download our application

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and apply for a loan.

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Jenipher answered a few
questions on her phone

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and she gave us access to a few
key data points on her device.

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And here's what we saw.

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So, bad news first.

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Jenipher had a low savings balance
and no previous loan history.

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These are factors

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that would have thrown up
a red flag to a traditional bank.

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But there were other points
in her history that showed us

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a much richer picture of her potential.

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So for one,

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we saw that she made regular
phone calls to her family in Uganda.

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Well, it turns out that the data shows

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a four percent increase in repayment

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among people who consistently
communicate with a few close contacts.

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We could also see

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that though she traveled
around a lot throughout the day,

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she actually had pretty
regular travel patterns,

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and she was either at home
or at her food stall.

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And the data shows
a six percent increase in repayment

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among customers who are consistent

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with where they spend most of their time.

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We could also see
that she communicated a lot

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with many different people
throughout the day

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and that she had a strong support network.

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Our data shows

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that people who communicate
with more than 58 different contacts

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tend to be more likely
to be good borrowers.

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In Jenipher's case,

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she communicated
with 89 different individuals,

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which showed a nine percent
increase in her repayment.

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These are just some of the thousands
of different data points

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that we look at to understand
a person's creditworthiness.

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And after analyzing all
of these different data points,

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we took the first risk

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and gave Jenipher a loan.

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This is data that would not
be found on a paper trail

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or in any formal financial record.

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But it proves trust.

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By looking beyond income,

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we can see that people in emerging markets

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that may seem risky
and unpredictable on the surface

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are actually willing and have
the capacity to repay.

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Our credit scores have helped us deliver
over 200,000 loans in Kenya

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in just the past year.

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And our repayment rates
are above 90 percent --

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which, by the way, is in line
with traditional bank repayment rates.

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With something as simple
as a credit score,

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we're giving people the power
to build their own futures.

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Our customers have used
their loans for family expenses,

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emergencies, travel

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and for investing back
into growing their businesses.

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They're now building better
economies and communities

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where more people can succeed.

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Over the past two years
of using our product,

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Jenipher has increased
her savings by 60 percent.

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She's also started
two additional food stalls

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and is now making plans
for her own restaurant.

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She's applying for a small-business loan
from a commercial bank,

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because she now has the credit history
to prove she deserves it.

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I saw Jenipher in Nairobi just last week,

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and she told me how excited
she was to get started.

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She said,

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"Only my son believed I could do this.
I didn't think this was for me."

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She's lived her whole life

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believing that there was a part
of the world that was closed off to her.

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Our job now is to open
the world to Jenipher

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and the billions like her
that deserve to be trusted.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)