Video Transcript
On Screen: The following video was produced by JPMorgan Chase & co. as sponsored content for Politico's What Works series.
Music
On Screen: JPMorgan Chase & co. on What Works in Exanding Access to the Financial Mainstream
On Screen: San Fransisco
On Screen: The Mission District
Jose Quinonez: 54 million adults in the U.S. do not have a credit score; they don't have a credit history. Social loans are loans that people make with each other, very traditional in the immigrant communities.
On Screen: Jose Quinonez, Chief Executive Officer, Mission Asset Fund
Jose Quinonez: People are sort of coming together and pooling each other's resources so they can actually have access to their own capital, but those loans never get recorded or reported to the credit bureaus...
Mission Asset Fund is helping low-income families transition into the financial mainstream, essentially servicing and formalizing social loans to help them, you know, build their savings, build their credit, help them, you know, lower their high-cost debt so that they can avoid payday lenders and actually build, you know, towards a brighter future.
[speaking spanish in background]
Jose Quinonez: We have what we call "lending circle sessions" here people come together and they actually, then, agree on how much they're going to contribute.
So imagine 10 people, each of them contribute, you know, $100 on a monthly basis, then, you have $1,000. So they do that in rotation until everybody has a chance of getting the $1,000 and this is a zero-interest, zero-fee loan...
What we do is basically record all those decisions and then, we're the ones that actually make the distributions of the loans and, because we record those payments, we are then able to, then, report that information to the credit bureaus.
They're borrowing and lending money with each other and so, our default rate is actually less than 1%. The repayment rate is 99.02%, I mean, which is really unheard of.
Helen is one of our clients and I think she's an example of all of the clients that we work with in helping them get into the financial mainstream.
[speaking spanish in background]
She had left her abusive relationship and her and her daughters were basically homeless. Because she didn't have a credit history, no landlord would rent to her.
Interview; Helen talking to camera in Spanish
Helen: They helped me find my own space. They helped me to organize myself financially and manage money properly.
On Screen: Helen O., Client, Mission Asset Fund
Helen: I didn't know anything and now that I have a high credit score, it has changed my life in every way.
[Laughs]
Jose Quinonez: Getting that credit score is so transformative because that's like one of the moments where they feel visible, they feel recognized, they see the possibility of their dreams coming to fruition.
We're allowing them the ability to, then, fulfill their full economic potential, which is good for them, as individuals; good for them, as a family and as a community; and then, that actually helps the economy, as a whole.
And, now, they can actually access high-quality loans, where they can buy cars, they can buy houses, they can invest in their communities and be full participants of our economy. That's good for everybody.
On Screen: The Mission Asset Fund is expanding by franchising the Lending Circle Program to non-profit partners across the U.S.
Within 1 year, MAF Lending Circles members improve credit scores by an average of 168 points (According to Mission Asset Fun Data)
100% of MAF Lending Circle members open bank accounts and establish credit scores (According to Mission Asset Fun Data)
JPMorgan Chase & co. is proud to be a corporate partner of Mission Asset Fund