alternative-credit
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Tala Bet the Credit Score Was Wrong - Now 14 Million Borrowers Power Its AI
Shivani Siroya built a lender for people the credit bureaus could not see. A decade, 14 million customers and $8 billion in disbursements later, Tala wants to turn that hard-won repayment history into the credit layer for the global majority.
Kafene
Kafene is a New York-based fintech that gives retailers a point-of-sale lease-to-own option for shoppers who get turned away by traditional credit. Using a machine-learning model that weighs more than 20,000 data points, Kafene approves customers in seconds for purchases up to about $5,000 - furniture, appliances, electronics, tires - then lets them lease the item and either pay it off to own it or return it without penalty. It positions itself as a transparent, debt-free alternative to buy-now-pay-later for the roughly 100 million Americans with limited or no prime credit.