Variety: TikTok Is Adding New Video-Crediting Features, Following Backlash Among Black Creators. “TikTok is finally going to let users of the short-form app properly give credit where credit is due. The Bytedance-owned app is introducing the first iteration of creator-crediting tools that will enable — and encourage — users to link back to the videos of TikTok creators and trend originators.”
CNBC: The Karat Black Card: The credit card just for social media influencers. “When you apply for the card, Karat doesn’t just assess the financials that a traditional bank or issuer would look at, such as your cash on hand and your income, but they also look at your social media stats. Depending on what platform you’re on, they’ll look at different types of data. If you’re a YouTuber, they’ll look at subscribers and ad share revenue. If you’re an Instagram influencer, they’ll look at followers, engagement rates and sponsorship deals.”
MSN Money: Banks Have No Idea Who’s Creditworthy Anymore. “Lenders that are having a tough time spotting risky loan applicants are approving fewer borrowers for credit cards, auto loans and other consumer debt. They are also hunting for new data sets that could indicate who is in financial trouble and how much they need to set aside to cover soured loans. The Federal Reserve last week said the biggest U.S. banks could be saddled with as much as $700 billion in loan losses in a prolonged downturn.”
Wired: A New Card Ties Your Credit to Your Social Media Stats. “SPENCER DONNELLY, WHO goes by TheRussianBadger on YouTube, has cultivated an audience of nearly 2.7 million subscribers for his gaming videos. For years, business has been rosy. YouTube shares a percentage of the ad revenue on each of his videos, and the money is good enough that playing video games on camera has become a full-time job. A few years ago, he even incorporated The Russian Badger, legitimizing his YouTubing business. The only problem: no bank would give him a serious credit card.”
USA Today: Equifax data breach settlement: How to file a claim for $125 or free credit reporting. “If you were affected by the 2017 Equifax data breach, you can now file a claim for a piece of the settlement. The credit-reporting company has agreed to pay between $575 million and $700 million to settle state and federal investigations related to a massive security incident that exposed the personal information of more than 147 million Americans two years ago.” The site includes a form where you can enter your last name and the last six digits of your social to see if you are entitled to claim. I looked myself up and GUESS WHAT….
Krebs on Security: MyEquifax.com Bypasses Credit Freeze PIN. “Most people who have frozen their credit files with Equifax have been issued a numeric Personal Identification Number (PIN) which is supposed to be required before a freeze can be lifted or thawed. Unfortunately, if you don’t already have an account at the credit bureau’s new myEquifax portal, it may be simple for identity thieves to lift an existing credit freeze at Equifax and bypass the PIN armed with little more than your, name, Social Security number and birthday.”
The Register: US credit repair biz damages own security: 111GB of personal info exposed in S3 blunder. “The National Credit Federation, a US credit repair biz, left 111GB of thousands of folks’ highly sensitive personal details exposed to the public internet, according to security researchers. In yet another AWS S3 configuration cockup, Americans’ names, addresses, dates of birth, photos of driver licenses and social security cards, credit reports from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, detailed financial histories, and credit card and bank account numbers, were all left sitting out in the open for miscreants to find, it is claimed.”
If you know any under-18 victims of the 2015 Anthem insurance company hack, let them know about this offer from Anthem, which Anthem apparently released last night at 8pm on BusinessWire, because when you want to inform your customers there’s no time like 8pm on Friday night. This is a PRESS RELEASE. “Anthem is offering a special minor credit freeze program to parents and legal guardians of minors whose information was involved in the 2015 cyber attack against the company…. Working closely with the three nationwide consumer credit reporting agencies – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, Anthem is offering a program to allow a credit freeze for children across all three bureaus. Anthem will cover the cost of the credit freeze for this program as well as the cost of removing the credit freeze at a later date. As part of this program, Anthem will also offer to reimburse parents or […]
The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) has launched a new credit trends tool. “The beta version of the tool covers the mortgage, credit card, auto loan, and student loan markets. The first Consumer Credit Trends release shows a sharp uptick in mortgage originations from August to October compared to last year, growth in credit card lending to lower-income consumers, fewer auto loans to borrowers with lower credit scores, and a slight slowdown of new student loans.”
The ResearchBuzz Firehose is regular RB content presented as individual posts.
For digest-type posts a couple of times a day, please visit ResearchBuzz.
Want to know how to best use the Firehose for content discovery?
Check out this handy article.