The personal information that friends share on social media websites is being used by a growing number of financial institutions to build a credit profile for potential borrowers, in addition to the official credit report. How that information can or should be used by lenders is still up for debate.
“Our view is there is a constant push by lenders to manage risk for their loans. They want more data to qualify the creditworthiness of the loan applicant,” said Thomas Pryor, a spokesman for PersonalLoanOffers.com, a personal loan matching network based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “Our company policy is against it.”
He said lenders are logging into Facebook, Twitter, Match.com and other social media websites to look for items that provide insight into a loan applicant’s lifestyle and behavior. They also use such websites to verify any public information about an applicant.
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