Baidu partners ZestFinance to turn search data into credit scores
Chinese web giant Baidu has made an investment in ZestFinance, a US fintech startup using machine learning to overhaul the credit scoring business. The size of the deal has not been disclosed.In addition, Baidu will use ZestFinance's system to help it develop a credit scoring platform in China based on its trove of web search data.
Founded by former Google CIO Douglas Merrill, ZestFinance has developed a platform that consumes vast amounts of data to more accurately identify good borrowers, running several mathematical models in parallel to make underwriting decisions in less than 10 seconds.
The company claims that this means higher repayment rates for lenders and lower-cost credit for consumers....MORE
