TomoCredit co-founder and CEO Kristy Kim knew she was going to be an entrepreneur since she was 10 or 11 years previous—however issues didn’t fall into place till she tried to purchase her first car after school. “I’d say the pivotal expertise that led me to Tomo… was [that] I needed to purchase my first automotive whereas working as an funding banker in San Francisco,” she says.
Kim, a first-generation Korean immigrant who graduated from the College of California, Berkeley, utilized for an auto mortgage at a Lexus dealership and was rejected straight away. After struggling to determine why and the place to go for solutions, Kim finally realized it was as a result of she had no credit score historical past in the USA.
“I’m effectively educated, labored arduous to get a job and obtained a job, and I used to be making a six-figure earnings,” she says. “I did all the precise issues as an immigrant I used to be instructed to do. After which right here I’m not having [any] credit score historical past within the U.S., so I get rejected inside seconds of making use of for an auto mortgage.”
Kim realized she wasn’t alone: So many college students, immigrants, girls and different members of marginalized communities wrestle to safe leases for residences, make large purchases akin to vehicles or get accepted for mortgages as a result of their lack of credit score historical past or low credit score rating. In 2018, she based TomoCredit in hopes of serving to others perceive and enhance their monetary wellness.
TomoCredit presents a bank card that’s designed to assist customers construct their credit score rating as shortly as attainable and receives a small price from retailers for each buy made with the cardboard. To use for it, all people want is a legitimate Social Safety quantity or particular person taxpayer identification quantity. TomoCredit makes use of various knowledge sources akin to checking account info to course of card functions (so a conventional credit score rating isn’t mandatory) and helps customers construct their scores utilizing a weekly autopay possibility.
The bank card is constructed on Kim’s realization {that a} wealth of transaction information detailing spending habits exists in people’ checking account summaries—knowledge that may make them credit-worthy. To launch TomoCredit, Kim discovered an engineer to investigate the formatting of checking account knowledge and finally zero in on patterns associated to account balances with the objective of coaching an underwriting mannequin, a structured course of utilized by lenders, insurers and buyers to guage and assess the danger related to offering financing and figuring out the phrases and circumstances of transactions.
As soon as it gained momentum and knew how you can method the datasets, Kim shared the findings with threat managers at banks akin to Citibank and Wells Fargo and requested if it was worthwhile for serving to people achieve entry to credit score even when they don’t have any credit score historical past. As a result of many large banks are set of their methods and have processes that profit the broader inhabitants, she knew beginning her personal firm can be the one approach to supply one of the best service to the ignored communities she needed to serve.
“I’ve a greatest shot at being the A-plus service for the phase of customers who don’t have good credit score or a great credit score rating however good money circulate and need to get assistance on how you can enhance their credit score,” she says.
For the reason that firm began, it has developed to supply memberships that buyers can select based mostly on their wants and in addition has an AI-powered credit score assistant that gives TomoScores. The money flow-based credit score rating helps companies consider the creditworthiness of debtors who lack a conventional credit score rating.
“Whether or not it’s paying off your bank card or researching your auto mortgage rate of interest, come to us as a result of we will give you extra personalised recommendation…. In contrast to different firms, we’ve been coaching our underwriting mannequin over the previous six years with 6 billion-plus transaction knowledge,” Kim says. “We’ve been coaching our mannequin to present you personalised [financial] recommendation based mostly by yourself earnings stage and personal spending patterns.”
Each week, the TomoCredit workforce chats with about 50 clients over the cellphone to collect suggestions about what different options it could possibly add to assist them attain monetary targets. (For instance, a person would possibly request to dispute credit score report errors by way of their on-line dashboard.) Sooner or later, Kim hopes to constantly present extra instruments and sources for purchasers and develop into their long-term “monetary co-pilots”—fairly than only a short-term answer.
Whereas TomoCredit continues to innovate, Kim says the corporate nonetheless follows the identical mission it began with, which her workers is joyful to remind her of when issues get tense. “It’s not about one single function or one single enterprise mannequin, one sad buyer, one joyful buyer,” she says. “Finally, we’re doing this as a result of we imagine that the market and the credit score system will finally change in the best way that we need.”
Although change to the credit score system is sluggish, it’s taking place, Kim says. The proof is in additional acknowledgment of higher underwriting or the necessity to use extra AI and datasets. “My workforce is like, ‘Kristy, you recognize what? Possibly you don’t really feel it on daily basis, however positively issues are transferring in the precise path.’”
Kim thinks that rising credit score entry will stay a profit to America’s economic system regardless of any adjustments within the political system, due to capitalism and lenders’ urge for food for increasing their companies. “Irrespective of who’s within the White Home or the place we’re within the political surroundings, rising credit score entry to customers is all the time essential after which it advantages everyone,” she says. “It not simply advantages the customers, it advantages lenders, too.”
Have a bad credit score?
Right here’s Kim’s recommendation.
Don’t be afraid to know the place you stand. Everybody has to start out someplace! “Generally folks get scared or overwhelmed to even begin as a result of they really feel like, ‘Oh, my stuff is horrible,’” she says. “So, it doesn’t give them pleasure to have a look at it.”
Discover the precise monetary associate. Kim says some clients are extra comfy sharing their knowledge with an organization that makes use of an AI mannequin like TomoCredit, which they discover much less judgmental. “We actually need to be a spot [where] there’s no stigma,” she says.
Be affected person. Your credit score rating received’t enhance in a single day. She says that whereas many occasions it feels such as you’re not making progress, there’s magnificence in persevering with to maneuver ahead.
“Then later, you see that you just made a giant distinction,” she says.
Picture courtesy of Kristy Kim. This text initially appeared within the September/October 2025 situation of SUCCESS® journal.