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IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

extremetech.com

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Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#181

Post by Sanzig »

forgingahead wrote: post #172
zionic wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a horrifying idea... eliminate fixed rate interest mortgages and the banks can target and de-home people at will.

To be fair, the fixed interest rate mortgage is uniquely American, and is not seen in most other countries of the world. It's a great deal if you can get it! But obviously someone has to backstop the other end of this deal, and in the US it's basically the government.

We have fixed interest rate mortgages in Canada, but the fixed rate is only valid for a specific period (typically 5 years). After this, the mortgage needs to be either renewed for another term at then-current rates, or transferred to a new lender.

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#182

Post by crummybowley »

forgingahead wrote: post #172
zionic wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a horrifying idea... eliminate fixed rate interest mortgages and the banks can target and de-home people at will.

To be fair, the fixed interest rate mortgage is uniquely American, and is not seen in most other countries of the world. It's a great deal if you can get it! But obviously someone has to backstop the other end of this deal, and in the US it's basically the government.

I have a mortgage that is fixed interest and not backed by the government in anyway... So I think you might be wrong on how the risk is calculated.

I can't see how any new risk is added in a fixed rate. In fact I can't see how a non fixed rate would really be good for anybody, and would keep the risk fluctuating for all parties involved.

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#183

Post by saalweachter »

Mengkudulangsat wrote: post #125
gruez wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Can an autonomous bot on some smart contract have a credit score? Why is credit a privilege only humans can enjoy? companies and even countries can have credit scores, so it's not something that "only humans can enjoy". >We should be able to spool up a persistent pseudonym that can have a credit score based solely on its selectively disclosed transaction history since inception. Part of what gives credit scores valu…

The reason I'm keen about pseudonyms is because by detaching real-world identities from credit requirements, we can greatly improve access to finance. If new pseudonyms are treated with extreme suspicion then so be it, but there should be a way for the pseudonym to progress from there solely through transactional behavior. Even if the amount of credit the market becomes comfortable with through this scheme is $100, t…

Eh, it just becomes iterated prisoner's dilemma.

If someone is operating under a pseudonym and can walk away from it, you're playing an iterated prisoner's dilemma where one party knows on what turn they will defect and the other doesn't.

With real identities, the iteration only ends in the death of one party, the timing of which is seldom known to anyone (although will statistically be taken into account).

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#184

Post by ivirshup »

nanis wrote: post #158
jart wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that the IMF thinks your choice of operating system should impact your creditworthiness is something I've been warning people about for months because it shows why we need cosmopolitan software. Since it's nice to have the ability to pick up and move our apps elsewhere should we discover we're using the "wrong" one. Because political winds change, but good engineering endures. https://github.com/jart/cosmopo…

> The fact that the IMF thinks your choice of operating system should impact your creditworthiness is something At some point in the past or maybe in another universe, a well known accommodation booking site might or might not have been offering better rates to people using Linux than OSX. Not confirmed, obviously.

I think this counts as confirmed (it was kayak/ orbitz)[1]. Pretty sure I heard one of the engineers talking about it in an interview too?

[1]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304458604577488...

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#185

Post by pc86 »

derefr wrote: post #177
jart wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that the IMF thinks your choice of operating system should impact your creditworthiness is something I've been warning people about for months because it shows why we need cosmopolitan software. Since it's nice to have the ability to pick up and move our apps elsewhere should we discover we're using the "wrong" one. Because political winds change, but good engineering endures. https://github.com/jart/cosmopo…

I think the thought there is just that STEM nerds tend to have stable high-paid jobs and thus good credit, and so OSes/browsers that nobody but nerds use / would tolerate using, are signals of having good credit.

This just sounds like including income in credit score with extra steps.

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#186

Post by aabaker99 »

crummybowley wrote: post #182
forgingahead wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the fixed interest rate mortgage is uniquely American, and is not seen in most other countries of the world. It's a great deal if you can get it! But obviously someone has to backstop the other end of this deal, and in the US it's basically the government.

I have a mortgage that is fixed interest and not backed by the government in anyway... So I think you might be wrong on how the risk is calculated. I can't see how any new risk is added in a fixed rate. In fact I can't see how a non fixed rate would really be good for anybody, and would keep the risk fluctuating for all parties involved.

If you have a fixed rate mortgage, the bank bears an interest rate risk. If the interest rate goes up, the bank could be getting more money in interest, but they aren't.

If you have an adjustable-rate mortgage, you bear the interest rate risk.

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#187

Post by regularfry »

nanis wrote: post #155
msbarnett wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1984 was not a novel about getting downvoted by other people because they didn’t feel your point was a particularly good or insightful contribution to a discussion board, nor is a downvote in any way equal to censorship in any meaningful sense, so it seems a bit hysterical to suggest it somehow “proves his point”.

Last year, I tried to put together some sane information about the statistics of testing[1] plus a simple app that allows you to play with the arithmetic[2]. It took very little time to put it together. Everything on it is factually accurate. However, it took me three months to get all the bans on it removed by which point I had given up on the notion of providing sober commentary instead of constant breathless panic…

I can't see that domain, it's blocked on our corporate network, but those seem like odd numbers to have picked. Lateral flow tests have a 0.3% false positive rate, and a 23% false negative rate. With those numbers, at a 5% infected rate, 7% of all positive test results will be false, rather than 34%.

But that ignores a major factor, which is that testing isn't uniformly distributed. It's inevitably going to be skewed towards people who are more likely to be infected. That means the true number will be less than 7%.

The danger with testing really isn't the false positive rate. It's the false negatives.

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#188

Post by pc86 »

Sanzig wrote: post #181
forgingahead wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the fixed interest rate mortgage is uniquely American, and is not seen in most other countries of the world. It's a great deal if you can get it! But obviously someone has to backstop the other end of this deal, and in the US it's basically the government.

We have fixed interest rate mortgages in Canada, but the fixed rate is only valid for a specific period (typically 5 years). After this, the mortgage needs to be either renewed for another term at then-current rates, or transferred to a new lender.

We have these in the US too, they're called adjustable-rate mortgages.

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#189

Post by forgingahead »

Sanzig wrote: post #181
forgingahead wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the fixed interest rate mortgage is uniquely American, and is not seen in most other countries of the world. It's a great deal if you can get it! But obviously someone has to backstop the other end of this deal, and in the US it's basically the government.

We have fixed interest rate mortgages in Canada, but the fixed rate is only valid for a specific period (typically 5 years). After this, the mortgage needs to be either renewed for another term at then-current rates, or transferred to a new lender.

Sure, fixed term for a short period is normal everywhere. But a fixed term for the entire length of the mortgage, whereby mortgage terms are commonly 30 years long, are only seen in the US and Denmark.

Here's some more detail on this: https://www.netinterest.co/p/financing-the-american-home

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#190

Post by infamouscow »

josephcsible wrote: post #101
NoGravitas wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A better conversation is whether IMF/credit scores deserve to exist in the first place. You're right about this. People's access to necessities like housing shouldn't depend on whether they are making money for the finance industry. And developing countries' access to the resources needed to improve the quality of life of their citizens shouldn't depend on making the development process profitable to US/European in…

> > A better conversation is whether IMF/credit scores deserve to exist in the first place. > You're right about this. People's access to necessities like housing shouldn't depend on whether they are making money for the finance industry. And developing countries' access to the resources needed to improve the quality of life of their citizens shouldn't depend on making the development process profitable to US/Europea…

Lenders should be able to make a determination by looking at the person's history of defaulting. An opaque number doesn't tell you that.
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