Trusting Social

Trusting Social is an AI-driven financial technology company that provides credit scoring using big data, social, web, and mobile data for individuals in emerging markets. Founded in 2013 by Nguyen Nguyen, Tuyen Huynh, and Rohit Narang, the firm is headquartered in Singapore and operates in Vietnam, Indonesia, India, and the Philippines. The founders identified that traditional credit scoring technologies were outdated and not designed for emerging countries or the underbanked population, which inspired them to build a new big data scoring technology. Co-founder and CEO, Nguyen Nguyen, holds a Ph.D. in Econometrics and has prior experience in global credit risk at Barclays. Tuyen Huynh, Co-founder and CTO, has a Ph.D. in Machine Learning.

The company's core mission is to promote financial inclusion by enabling lenders to serve billions of consumers who are not covered by traditional credit bureaus. By 2020, Trusting Social had scored one billion users and serves over 170 financial institutions across Asia. Its products include Trust Scores for alternative credit and fraud scoring, Trust Vision for digital customer onboarding with facial recognition and ID validation, and Smart Customer Acquisition to target creditworthy borrowers. These solutions allow financial institutions to verify application data, assess credit risk, and provide loans to the "financially invisible."

Trusting Social operates on a business-to-business model with two main revenue streams: an Enterprise business where financial institutions pay per use for its services, and a Partnerships business where it co-creates and manages consumer credit portfolios with partners, sharing in the net profits. The company has raised a total of $84 million over four funding rounds, including a Series C round in April 2022 that raised $65 million from Masan Group's subsidiary, The Sherpa Company, which acquired a 25% stake. This strategic partnership aims to develop an AI-powered consumer tech platform offering customized retail and financial products in Vietnam. Notable investors include Sequoia Capital, Beenext, 500 Global, and Kima Ventures.

Keywords: credit scoring, financial inclusion, AI, machine learning, big data analytics, fintech, emerging markets, alternative data, risk management, digital lending, identity verification, fraud detection, customer onboarding, consumer finance, embedded finance, Southeast Asia, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines