Remember when social media was fun? Well you might not for much longer, thanks to a new tech startup that uses social media to calculate your credit worthiness.
Sure, the intentions of Friendly Score are good: the company’s number one corporate value is “financial inclusion for the underbanked, the young and the internationally mobile” who, it believes, are being let down by traditional credit bureaus that use “old and conservative measures of affordability, such as number of years spent in the same residence or job”.
The company is pretty clever too. While its complete methodology is, understandably, a secret, it told Gizmodo that it uses, “Everything ranging from data points that reflect the quality of someone’s social and professional network, online interactions, behavioural and communication habits, to verified data about basic education, employment, and residential history.”
But, frankly, if the idea of a company assessing your social media to see if you’re worth lending money to doesn’t send a shiver down your spine, then you’ve probably been a lot cleverer with your Facebook settings than us.