We are excited to announce a new investment in Bankuish, alongside Jaguar Ventures, Global Founders Capital, and prominent angel investors. Bankuish helps freelancers and gig workers access better credit by translating work history and reputation data from gig platforms into an alternative credit score accepted by banks. They want to become the one-stop-shop for the growing Gig Economy in Latin America.

Helping gig workers access financial services

The gig economy is becoming part of our daily life. We interact with gig workers when taking an Uber or Cabify, ordering food from Rappi, Uber Eats, renting a vacation apartment through Airbnb, or buying items from Etsy and eBay. The gig economy keeps growing as a result of the decentralization of work, which is being accelerated by technological advances as well as by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unfortunately, traditional Financial Institutions see the gig worker’s profile as very difficult to monetize, due to a lack of information, the risk associated with the gig work’s uncertain nature, and the instability and volume of their income. Thus, gig workers find it hard to access financial services, such as loans, and hence have to turn to predatory lending practices. But most gig workers and freelancers are organizing themselves around platforms where they accumulate both their economic payouts and their reputation driven by customer ratings. This is where Bankuish comes in, bridging the gap and unlocking the banking services they deserve from top-tier banks.

Bankuish supports gig workers to turn their hard-earned and proven trustworthiness into banks’ approved creditworthiness. They do this by extracting more than 100 data points from the gig economy platforms, and turning them into a credit score to then present pre-approved bank loan offers in their platform.

Top tier banks in Mexico and Brazil, including Santander, BBVA, Banco Sabadell, Banorte, Citibanamex, and Itau have already approved and are comfortable with Bankuish' credit score, which captures information like income trends and seasonality, the number of rides in the past month, ratings from customers, activity drops, etc. Bankuish can automatically extract this data from the leading gig platforms such as Uber, Rappi, Airbnb, Freelancer, Etsy, and many others.

The Team Behind Bankuish

When we first met Bankuish, we immediately knew that the solution was a game-changer for many. The team behind this company has proven that they can scale at incredible speed, already helping thousands of gig workers be financially included. The team and advisors combine deep industry knowledge and management experience.

Bankuish’ CEO, José V. Fernández, is a serial entrepreneur, a chartered economist from the Spanish government, a banking executive, and a diplomat. His goal is to lead Bankuish into becoming the future of reputation for the gig economy, supporting gig workers with financial services, financial literacy, insurance, a wallet including loans and payments, and tax and other regulatory navigation tools.

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