No Credit Score? Say Hello to New York Fintech Startup’Petal’

Forget credit scores: Petal determines whether you’re eligible for a credit card using factors like your income and bank statements. Geared toward younger people who haven’t yet established a solid line of credit, the company doesn’t charge fees–including for missed payments–and offers cash-back rewards.

Instead of focusing on credit scores, Petal looks at an applicant’s financial behavior. The consumer’s digital financial profile has three main drivers to show their payback behavior. As per close source, there are over 65 million people in the U.S. with no or misrepresented credit scores, either because they are too young, or because they’re veterans, emigrants or even people that are divorced, who have historically built their score jointly with their former spouse.

The Petal card, which is powered by Visa, starts with a credit line of $500 and goes up to $10,000. The average amount ranges between $2,000 and $3,000. The card has no fees of any kind – overdraft, late or annual. The APR on the card ranges between 17.99% to 24.99%, “lower than the other introductory cards. Petal will use a credit score, only if available. It doesn’t require a FICO score, but if the applicant has one, it will include the data to form their profile.

Surely, the company is solving a lot of problems of middle-class and upper-middle class families with a unique concept without worrying about the credit score.

Suprotik Sinha

Suprotik Sinha is the Content Writer with Synkrama Technologies. He writes about technologies and startups in the global enterprise space. An animal lover, Suprotik, is a postgraduate from Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication (SIMC) Pune. He carries 6+ years of experience in Content Writing, and he also worked in mainstream broadcast media, where he worked as a Journalist with Ibn7 ( now known as News18 India) and Zee Media in Mumbai.