Informed Consent: How Do We Make It Work for Mobile Credit Scoring?

This paper seeks to determine what consumers understand about their mobile data, and how it is being used by financial service providers. It emphasizes on developing consumer-friendly approaches to any rules on data storing and usage that promote protection while enabling innovations that hold promise of expanding access to appropriate financial services for the unbanked. The research methods and findings of this paper have important implications for the appropriate and responsible use of consumer’s mobile records for financial inclusion globally. Key findings from the research include:

• Consumers expressed strong interest in the way their data could be used for loan determination, not just how this data would be kept private;
• Consumers can gain a basic understanding of concepts of data privacy and credit scoring through simple messages;
• Often a single message may be insufficient for consumers to fully understand the use of their mobile data, so opportunities for follow up should be built into the process;
• Data usage and data privacy are interlinked in consumers’ understanding of the process, and so both need to be presented in a single message to highlight their linkages.