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Local start-up takes peer lending online
Susus, the type of peer-lending circles that help immigrants get their businesses off the ground, are now online too, thanks to a local start-up.
Local start-up takes peer lending online
Peer-lending circles, known as "susus" to the West African business people that populate Southwest Philadelphia's Woodland Avenue, as we report in the current issue of City Paper, are an informal way of saving collectively and getting access to capital quickly, based on a centuries-old tradition. Thanks to a local start-up, OurSusu.com, that group lending practice is now moving online, too — and benefiting from both social networking culture and secure (FDIC-insured) banking.
Jorge Santana, founder of the financial services start-up BetterCapital, and partner Carlton Langley, who created OurSusu.com, based in King of Prussia and Philly, have built what they say is the first online ROSCA (Rotating Savings & Loan Association) platform, allowing individuals to save money by contributing each week toward payouts that rotate among the participants.
"Whereas debt in traditional markets is seen as a way to make a lot of money off of folks, we want to find a way to be profitable but also to make sure borrowers get the best deal possible," Santana says. "By having people lend to one another, we could save money for a lot of people, help them improve their credit scores and escape the trappings of high interest debt" such as credit card debt or pay day loans.
The two-year-old site has more than 500 users at a given time, generally groups of participants who know one another or who are connected by a single ROSCA organizer. Many are second-generation immigrants who were raised with the ROSCA tradition.
Santana and Langley are also working to create their own alternative type of credit score, which will take into account social capital and repayment history. "Our sense is that there's a large market out there that may have a high debt-to-equity ratio, but have a history of consistent payments. That could be the owner of a start-up company, or someone just coming out of college with a high debt load."
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