Making credit histories globally portable, with Misha Esipov (Nova Credit)
How to Lend Money to Strangers
Brendan le Grange
4.9 • 43 Ratings
🗓️ 30 September 2021
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
I’ve been an international immigrant three times now – into Denmark, into Hong Kong, and into the UK. In each case there was the expected pile of government paperwork to get there, but also then an equally tiresome series of hoops to jump through before you’re considered a full part of the credit economy.
Want a phone contract? What’s your credit history?
Want a lease? What’s your credit history?
Want a credit card? What’s your credit history?
The fortunate immigrants might find themselves having to stump up a year’s expenses upfront, the less fortunate will be borrowing from very expensive informal sources. Until Nova Credit stepped in.
In today’s episode of How to Lend Money to Strangers I speak to Misha Esipov about making credit histories globally portable, and the data that shows international scores to be predictive of credit performance in the United States.
Find out more about Misha and Nova Credit
If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show
A full written transcript with timestamps can be found at https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-11
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The reality around this segment is this is a segment that has no information here. They don't have |
| 0:05.1 | bank data and bank trends actually because they don't really have a bank account yet or if they |
| 0:09.1 | even if they do, there's not enough history in that account to be able to make an informed |
| 0:13.2 | decision off of it. They don't have a bureau file and so this is really the only viable solution |
| 0:18.5 | in the market and for better or worse, anytime somebody puts out an RFP for immigrant credit |
| 0:26.6 | solution or the only ones in the world that have a viable solution. |
| 0:50.8 | Welcome back to how to lend money to strangers. The podcast about lending strategies across the |
| 0:56.1 | credit life cycle and around the world and indeed from one part of the world to another as a |
| 1:01.4 | case is today because I'm speaking to Misha Sipov CEO and co-founder of Nova Credit. The |
| 1:08.1 | Fintech that's been a pioneer in cross-border credit reporting. Built and managed by immigrants |
| 1:13.3 | for immigrants, Nova allows people to arrive in the US and thrive. I'm a three time immigrant |
| 1:19.9 | myself and so although working for banks and credit bureaus has isolated me from the worst of |
| 1:25.1 | this problem, it is still one I haven't escaped completely and one that remains close to my heart. |
| 1:30.8 | But even in self-serving terms, as you'll hear, the immigrant population is a pool for fantastic |
| 1:36.1 | future growth. Now I first heard Misha speak in Shanghai five maybe six years ago and his message |
| 1:42.9 | stuck with me through to today. |
| 1:53.2 | One of the reasons that I want to bring you on is that there's always one of those great entrepreneurial |
| 1:59.2 | stories where you face the problem conceived of a solution, turned it into a business to help all |
| 2:04.9 | those that hang behind you. So for those who are not familiar with what Nova are doing, can you give a |
| 2:11.4 | quick overview of what the Nova business is and a little bit of how you and your partners came about |
| 2:17.5 | the idea and formed that business? Yeah, I have had a tough through that. So we started a few years |
| 2:24.4 | ago and the way that the business came about was we were students and graduate school at Stanford |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Brendan le Grange, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Brendan le Grange and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.