credit-monitoring
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Kashable bets your paycheck can open a better door to credit
Two immigrants with jobs but no American credit history saw a lending system missing half the picture. Kashable built a business around the other half: the paycheck.
Array wants your bank to be more useful - without taking the credit
Credit scores, debt plans, home values, identity protection: Array puts the tools inside brands people already use. Its growing collection of fintech acquisitions is a bet that the next useful financial app may be the one you already have.
The Credit Score Has a Cover Charge
Kikoff made a small, restricted line of credit into an entry point for people the credit system overlooks. Its larger wager is that a $5 monthly relationship can grow into a toolkit for the rest of their financial lives.
IDIQ Wants to Make Your Rent Count
The company behind IdentityIQ has bought its way beyond fraud alerts into rent reporting, financial coaching and legal benefits. Its wager: the next customer may arrive through a landlord, a mortgage broker or the office benefits desk.
StellarFi
StellarFi is an Austin-based fintech and public benefit corporation that helps people build credit without taking on debt. Members link recurring bills - rent, utilities, streaming, phone - and StellarFi pays them, then reports the on-time payments to the major U.S. credit bureaus each month. Founded in 2021 by serial entrepreneur and former U.S. Marine Lamine Zarrad, the company targets the roughly 150 million Americans with thin files or credit scores below 680, turning ordinary monthly bills into a path to a better score. The product has since expanded into a tiered, behavior-based credit card.
Credit Karma
Credit Karma is a consumer finance platform that gives more than 130 million members in the U.S., Canada and U.K. free, ongoing access to their credit scores and reports, plus monitoring, recommendations and tools for credit cards, loans, insurance and more. Founded in 2007 by Kenneth Lin, Ryan Graciano and Nichole Mustard, the company built a 'freemium' model funded by lenders rather than consumers and was acquired by Intuit in 2020 in a roughly $7.1 billion deal.