Over 90% of Philly residents are scoreable by VantageScore, as compared to 75% by other models.
Philadelphia is the embodiment of American culture in many ways. Home to about 1.6 million people, not only is Philadelphia one of the ten most populous metro regions in the country – but also one of the richest from a cultural perspective. The birthplace of both the U.S. Constitution, the world-famous Philly cheesesteak, and home to great American historical landmarks such as the Liberty Bell, the city is an indisputable part of the cultural fabric of our country.
Given Philadelphia’s status as a large Northeastern metropolis, it might be surprising to know a significant portion of its residents currently lack equitable access to credit. According to Inclusion360 Powered by VantageScore™, an interactive tool that sheds light on geographic sectors about the potential for financial inclusion, almost 60,000 Philadelphia residents currently don’t meet the minimum criteria required to be scoreable according to conventional credit scoring models but can be accurately scored when VantageScore 4.0 is used.
How does this happen?
Typically, creditworthy Americans become ‘credit invisible’ as a result of having thin credit files (ones with little information) or altogether dormant ones (with no updates in the past six months). Currently, conventional models are not built to include these consumers’ experiences in their scoring. That said, this ‘credit invisible’ status doesn’t reflect said consumer’s creditworthiness – it simply precludes them from equitable access to financial services products.
This gap in credit scoring offers lenders an opportunity to provide access to credit to consumers who have historically been marginalized, as well as to expand financial inclusion among populations who need it the most.
INCLUSION360’s PHILADELPHIA SNAPSHOT:
- FINANCIAL INCLUSION EXPANDS: VantageScore models score 15% more people in Philadelphia than conventional models. This means more than 90% of Philly residents are scoreable by VantageScore, as compared to 75% scored by other models.
- LENDABLE POPULATION GROWS: Over 58,000 Philadelphia consumers currently excluded by other models have Near Prime or higher scores, representing a creditworthy lendable population.
- UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES WIN: Communities that most benefit from greater VantageScore adoption tend to be predominantly Black, Hispanic, and Asian.
VantageScore’s more inclusive credit models help increase equitable access to financial products for the underserved and creditworthy in cities such as Philadelphia while also identifying currently untapped growth opportunities for lenders and financial institutions.
VantageScore’s Inclusion360 is a groundbreaking, open-access, and interactive analytics platform that uses comprehensive data sets to uncover previously underserved consumers by geographic market. VantageScore is an industry leader in driving financially inclusive credit outcomes for traditionally underserved groups, including Black, Hispanic, and Asian consumers.
To experience the Inclusion360 tool and get specific insights by geography, please visit Inclusion360.
Explore other Inclusion360 insights on unscored populations throughout the United States in our previous posts: