U.K. Fintech Volunteers Build Open Banking App for Self-Employed COVID Relief
A coalition of U.K. fintech developers creates a rapid prototype called Covid Credit that uses Open Banking to verify lost income for self-employed workers seeking government aid.
A group of U.K. fintech volunteers builds a rapid prototype called Covid Credit to help self-employed workers prove lost income during the coronavirus crisis. The project sparks from a tweet by 11FS co-founder Simon Taylor, who suggests that Open Banking technology bypasses the administrative hurdles of providing government financial support to non-salaried individuals.
Founders from London-based startups Fronted and Credit Kudos lead the 48-hour development effort alongside dozens of other tech community members. The web application connects directly to a user's bank accounts via the Credit Kudos API to aggregate data and apply pattern recognition algorithms that calculate key income figures.
Applicants answer simple questions about their legal status and the pandemic's financial impact, and the system generates a unique, validated income statement. The Covid Credit team hosts the standalone Python application on Google Cloud and plans to present the finished solution to the appropriate government bodies to potentially extend relief packages to freelancers.