16 FinTech Companies Formed A Consortium To Oppose Fraud

A group of 16 FinTech companies, including SoFi, OnDeck and Funding Circle credit platforms, announced the partnership with Spring Labs startup to create a consortium. The aim of the partnership is “secure and regulatorily compliant way to leverage data to solve pressing problems related to ID verification and fraud within their respective sectors," — is claimed in a press release.

Getting a loan includes a lot of paperwork and the scoring of borrowers. Most of the fraudulent activities are related to documents’ falsification, creation of fake profiles, and similar illegal activities.

The initiative of the consortium is to minimize all possible risks associated with the falsification of information about the borrower. Spring Labs is to develop a solution with the use blockchain to store data. According to the press release, the Spring Protocol will provide the possibility to “exchange information without sharing underlying data, effectively decoupling data ownership from data value.”

Gary COHN, former Director of the U.S. National Economic Council and former President and Chief Operating Officer of Goldman Sachs, has joined Spring Labs as an advisor. Sheila BAIR, the former chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, joined the advisory board as well. As noted by Bloomberg, the project is aimed at competing with credit ratings agencies like Equifax.

Image courtesy of PIMNTS