CreditVidya’s mission is to tackle the huge socio-economic problem of lack of access to affordable credit. In India and several other emerging economies, credit bureau data is scanty or absent for most of the workforce. As a result, most people are either unable to access much-needed credit, or are forced to rely on expensive, informal sources.

CreditVidya initially had its SDK in multiple apps. The purpose of this was to acquire user data for the sole purpose of credit risk assessment. We have always complied with legal requirements, and the data was collected after the customer’s consent. At no point has CreditVidya ever accessed personally identifiable information (PII) of individuals and its risk assessment models are not based on such data.

That said, we are a part of an evolving big data ecosystem and over time, we have learnt several things along the way, which have helped us leverage technology in a way that is responsible and transparent. We believe that a strong consent-driven architecture and adherence to the highest security protocols can further strengthen financial inclusion. We matured as a company and took a progressive view on customer consent. Specifically, we invested in two areas:

ISO 27001 certification : We introduced processes and systems in place to adhere to the highest standards of security globally.

Transparent consent architecture : We ensured that the consent to accessing data was made specific to the use-case. Furthermore, CreditVidya now only works with partners who clearly demonstrate that they have a functionality in their app through which customers can apply for a loan. Because of this, all Winjit app data (mentioned in the article) stopped as of March 2018.

Building alternative ecosystems involves periods of uncertainty. The alternative lending ecosystem is no exception. We firmly believe that data empowerment is key to bridging the gap in financial inclusion in India. We have also increased our commitment to transparency and data security. Today, our success in enabling financial inclusion through AI is recognized globally.

At CreditVidya, we never stop learning. We’re always open to further improvement and bringing in best practices.