More than 26 million adults in the United States are considered “credit invisible”—they have no credit history. Many are immigrants, people of color, and members of low-income households. Many are renters. The cofounders of fintech startup Esusu, Wemimo Abbey and Samir Goel, can relate. After Abbey immigrated from Lagos, his family struggled with finances and ended up with a predatory loan. Goel, the child of immigrants from New Delhi, watched his family struggle, too.
“We started on three core premises,” says Abbey. “Where you come from, the color of your skin, and your financial identity should not determine where you end up in the world’s wealthiest nation.”
Historically, rent payments have not supported credit-building the way that mortgage payments do, preventing renters from establishing credit profiles to help finance a car, a home, or an education.
Esusu, which the co-CEOs founded in 2018, works with the nation’s top property managers and owners—including Cushman & Wakefield (which manages some 172,000 units across major markets), Mercy Housing (a national affordable housing organization that provides housing for 47,000 residents), and RHP Properties (the largest private owner and operator of manufactured-home communities in the U.S.).
Esusu’s cloud API integrates with major property management platforms to capture on-time payment data and securely transmit it to the three major credit bureaus—Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian—each month. More than 27,000 new credit scores have been created through on-time rent reporting for properties enrolled through Esusu’s work with Freddie Mac alone. Esusu’s work is the winner of Fast Company’s 2024 World Changing Ideas Award in the finance category.
In all, more than 5 million rental units are utilizing the service across 50 states, which means that, to date, Esusu has “unlocked” about $22 billion in new credit activities by renters who have improved their credit and are now accessing more affordable credit cards, loans, and first-time mortgages. “Our mission is to dismantle barriers to housing for working families,” says Goel. “When you can look at even one resident moving from public housing to potentially being a homeowner, it’s really powerful.”
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