After granting Tala access to her phone, through which the app cleverly parses mobile data to assess a borrower’s risk, she got a 30-day, $20 loan. She uses cellphone data to establish creditworthiness for people rejected by banks in the developing world. With estimated 2019 revenue of more than $100 million, Tala is valued at close to $800 million. It already has 4 million customers in five countries who have borrowed more than $1 billion. Streit, 57, says that nearly 40% of Green Dot’s 5 million customers were previously unbanked.

Source: The North Africa Journal October 10, 2019 13:52 UTC