Good morning, and welcome to Protocol Fintech. This Monday: rethinking the credit score, grading Congress’ crypto views and Revolut Pay.
Off the chain
It was royally offensive. Mere instants after Queen Elizabeth passed, opportunists were creating memecoins in her name. “The Queen is dead, but grift lives forever,” Tom Carreras wrote for Crypto Briefing. The blockchain is censorship-resistant, of course, and some level of scammy behavior will always be present. But would it be too much to ask for, I don’t know, a little restraint?
— Owen Thomas (email | twitter)
Keep score — or change it?
Credit scoring doesn’t work well for a lot of people. Those with low incomes, people of color and immigrants have been historically sidelined by the current system. Some of the nation’s most successful struggle with low credit scores despite their wealth. And if your fortune comes from crypto, you might as well be invisible to the credit bureaus.
Where some see flaws, startups see opportunity. Finding a way to accurately underwrite those excluded from the existing system could mean unlocking a whole new customer base for lending and investment products.
- It also entails a lot of risk, as inaccurately assessing borrowers’ ability to repay can result in costly defaults.
- Credit scoring is broken, but fixing it isn’t easy. FICO “is the dumbest system except for all the other ones,” Bullpen…
