The Financier Using Artificial Intelligence to Help Make Loans to Migrants

In the early 2000s, the U.K. government started pushing a new angle to narrow the inequality gap: getting people access to financial services, such as a bank account, money advice and affordable credit. It saw a strong link between financial exclusion and child poverty, and a 2004 Treasury report found more than 65 percent of the unbanked were on the lowest salaries. That's when Frédéric Nze had the idea that eventually led to Oakam, a small loans company with a mission to underwrite customers who typically struggle to get a loan. In 2017, a parliamentary committee called on Britain's financial regulator and banks to give it a greater priority. More than 1.7 million people in the U.K. do not have a bank account, and 40 percent of the working-age population have less than 100 pounds in savings.