After leveraging a “firehose” of 500 million data entries, Points has built an algorithm to help the unbanked create an accurate credit profile

A Singaporean company named Points has raises US$8 million to fund its blockchain-based service that helps the unbanked build a credit profile.

The fund included investment from Danhua Capital, Cherubic Ventures, Ce Yuan, Ontology Foundation, Nest.Bio Ventures and Zhong Cheng Xin Credit Technology.

The service leverages a massive amount of data provided by a major Chinese credit rating agency, Zhong Cheng Xin Credit Technology Ltd. to build credit profiles. Points is also partnering with Teleinfo, owned by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

The partnerships provide Points with a gigantic “fire hose” of data to build and train an algorithm that can create credit ratings and develop accurate risk assessments.

The end-goal is to create system that will hopefully attract participation from the world’s unbanked. If Points can provide accurate credit scores for people who seemed high-risk, they can help the 1.7 billion unbanked gain access to financial institutions.

It helps de-risk potential loans for banks and makes them more likely to transact with someone who is entering the financial system for the first time.

Points uses the blockchain to facilitate security so that companies and individuals can upload relevant documents which can be used to provide a risk assessment — irregardless of their current financial situation.

“Our vision is to serve the underrepresented community, and with blockchain as a core technology for Points, we’re able to incentivize partners to participate in risk-free data sharing, which combined with AI, means truly accurate credit scores,” said Points Founder Sarah Zhang in a statement.

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The money will be used to grow the tech team which Points hopes will accelerate the company’s growth.

Furthermore, while the amount of money probably disqualifies the use of the phrase “seed funding”, the company did use the term to describe the round. This means that, while the startup-jargon is not a clean fit, Points raised US$8 million in its first fundraising effort — an extremely high number by Southeast Asia standards.

The company claims it can support 10,000 transactions per second.

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