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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

#211

Post by nightski »

randomdata wrote: post #180
nightski wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand how credit cards work. I also get a lot more out of that transaction fee than just a credit score, so I am OK with it. But my point was just that you don't have to pay interest, it wasn't really about any of that.

Practically speaking, transaction fees are interest, you just pay it in a roundabout way.

I hate to keep this thread going, but they are more interest on cash payments than anything (due to increased prices) but with the card I get most of that money back in rewards and security (can have transactions disputed on demand and have them instantly removed).

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

#212

Post by derefr »

pc86 wrote: post #185
derefr wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Income, or even 6mo income history, doesn't predict how likely you'll be to get another job if you lose your job. What lenders really want to know is how in-demand you are in the market, and so what they should predict as the "floor" on your future income.

Add to that how likely someone with your personality-type is to just decide to take a few months/years off between jobs living off of savings, and you've got a heuristic nearly as predictive of loan-repayment as all the rest of the information lenders use today put together.

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

#213

Post by randomdata »

nightski wrote: post #211
randomdata wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practically speaking, transaction fees are interest, you just pay it in a roundabout way.

I hate to keep this thread going, but they are more interest on cash payments than anything (due to increased prices) but with the card I get most of that money back in rewards and security (can have transactions disputed on demand and have them instantly removed).

That was a fun tangent, for sure, but it remains that you are indeed paying interest, if not directly, in a roundabout way. Credit card companies would not provide you with those benefits if you did not provide them with revenue to justify the cost of the benefits plus some margin of profitability. Nothing in the world is free. At the end of the day, your credit score is bought, as the original topic of this thread asserted.

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

#214

Post by regularfry »

nanis wrote: post #201
regularfry wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I can't see that domain, it's blocked on our corporate network, Notes: https://archive.ph/hwbSf App: https://archive.ph/ntqR3 > Lateral flow tests have a 0.3% false positive rate In the lab ... which is not the same as the real world. > which is that testing isn't uniformly distributed. The comments were in the context of efforts to test everyone at least once or twice a week whether symptomatic or not. > The dange…

> In the lab ... which is not the same as the real world

No, I quoted the real-world value intentionally. The lab value is 0.06%. Depending on when you wrote the page it's understandable that you might not have had access to that yet, but it turns out that LFT's are really, really good at not throwing a false positive.

> Only if you assume there is no cost to false positives.

No, you don't need to assume there is no cost to false positives, only that it is less than the cost of false negatives in aggregate. And that's not hard: false negatives cause infections which compound exponentially, whereas false positives have a linear cost. That alone would make false negatives more costly, but when you account for the probability of each it's really not close.

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

#215

Post by aabaker99 »

crummybowley wrote: post #206
aabaker99 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, the bank has at risk the capital loaned, which they payed out. A risk is not a "loss" in a hypothetical amount of money that maybe could be had in the future given market conditions which are not predictable.

> A risk is not a "loss" in a hypothetical amount of money that maybe could be had in the future given market conditions which are not predictable.

This is incorrect. It is very common for investors (yes, including commercial banks) to frame risk in the way I described. This link to investopedia will expound upon my admittedly short description of interest rate risk [1]. Another obvious risk in this context is prepayment risk [2]. Note that both of these risk models are not about whether or not the bank is losing the money used to pay for the home, but are about factors that could affect the return on investment. You can find even more examples of risk models exactly like this on investopedia.

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/interestraterisk.asp [2] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/prepaymentrisk.asp

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

#216

Post by pc86 »

sgerenser wrote: post #207
pc86 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes, but hardly anyone uses them because fixed rate mortgages are so much better of a deal in most cases. The government owned guarantors (Fannie/Freddie mainly) are the main reason that 30 year mortgages can be offered at such low rates in the U.S.

My point was that the things they're calling fixed-rate mortgages are in fact not fixed-rate mortgages.

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

#217

Post by nyanpasu64 »

>isps giving out "correlation attacks as a service" to "i swear i'm a good actor" companies

>IMF recommends using ISP/OS/browsing history metadata for credit reports

>salary data is being sent to credit companies

I wish i could just only pick ISPs and jobs and houses and lenders and such which don't send information to tracking companies.

Sadly working for someone who pays you is illegal unless you report legal names, tax forms, and such to the government... and even making an online purchase without revealing your identity is difficult and questionably legal.

How viable it is to rent an apartment or buy a house, without letting others vacuum your personal information?

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

#218

Post by shadilay »

javajosh wrote: post #16

Well of course! The real question is: what shouldn't impact your credit score? Any information you consume could potentially impact your ability to repay a debt - if you read the wrong book, see the wrong movie, visit the wrong person, any of these events could change your mind, and make you a less reliable credit risk. Reading the wrong web resources is a natural extension. (Because the actually crazy people have ki…

China today, us tomorrow.

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

#219

Post by 35mm »

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.

It’s well known amongst marketing people that targeting iOS users results in ‘better leads’

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

#220

Post by lsllc »

cube00 wrote: post #60

From the IMF blog post[1]: > Even a well-paid expatriate moving to the United States can be caught in the conundrum of not getting a credit card for lack of credit record, and not having a credit record for lack of credit cards. > Fintech resolves the dilemma by tapping various nonfinancial data: the type of browser and hardware used to access the internet, the history of online searches and purchases. I enjoy the fr…

The quote is not entirely true, you can get a letter of good credit (i.e. a reference) from your bank in your home country. it won't get you a $25K credit line, but it'll get you up and running with the basics.
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