Giving Credit
Giving Credit is a community‑finance credit reporting agency that operates a mobile app enabling peer‑to‑peer lending without fees or interest. The platform aggregates users’ community finance activity to create a character‑based credit report, which can be shared with traditional financial institutions to qualify for lower‑cost loans. By linking informal lending networks to mainstream underwriting, it aims to bring credit access to the 108 million credit‑invisible Americans.
- Financial Technology
Funding
Founders
Product
Problem
Millions of low‑to‑moderate‑income individuals in the United States lack a traditional credit history, making it difficult to obtain affordable loans from mainstream lenders. Community‑based lending exists informally, but there is no standardized way to capture that activity for credit assessment.
Solution
Giving Credit offers a mobile application that facilitates fee‑free, interest‑free peer‑to‑peer lending among friends, family, and co‑workers within financially excluded communities. Each transaction is recorded on the platform, creating a verifiable, character‑based credit profile that reflects users’ repayment behavior and financial responsibility. The aggregated community finance data is shared with partner banks and credit unions, enabling these institutions to underwrite conventional credit products for users who would otherwise be credit invisible. By linking informal lending to formal credit reporting, the service helps users qualify for lower‑cost loans and other wealth‑building products.
Target Audience
Primary users are unbanked or underbanked individuals in low‑to‑moderate income communities who participate in informal lending, as well as banks and credit unions seeking alternative data to expand loan offerings.
Features
- Peer‑to‑peer lending marketplace with no fees or interest, allowing users to borrow and lend within trusted networks
- Automatic capture and verification of each loan transaction to build a real‑time credit ledger
- Character‑based credit scoring model that aggregates repayment history, network size, and lending frequency
- Secure data sharing API that delivers aggregated community finance data to partner financial institutions for underwriting
- Mobile‑first interface with invitation tools to grow lending networks quickly
- Dashboard for users to view their credit report, track lending activity, and export the report to lenders