Shinhan Card Develops Alternative Credit Evaluation Model for Platform Workers

Ministry of Science and ICT MyData Demonstration Service Support Project Selected for Financial Sector Task

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki Ha-young] Shinhan Card announced on the 22nd that it has been selected as the financial sector project executor for the 2021 MyData Demonstration Service Support Project, hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT.

Shinhan Card will undertake a project to integrate and organize income information of platform workers and provide this information to credit rating agencies and financial institutions, enabling them to receive various financial services.

The MyData (personal information utilization support) demonstration service support project is aimed at discovering and demonstrating a safe and reliable citizen-experience-oriented MyData service model centered on individuals as information subjects. Since March, the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Data Agency have conducted a project call and finally selected a total of eight projects across five sectors: finance, healthcare, public, transportation, and daily consumption.

As the selected executor in the financial sector, Shinhan Card will first obtain voluntary consent from platform workers affiliated with partner platform companies, then develop a model to integrate and organize the dispersed income information of these workers received from the platform companies. By providing this information to credit rating agencies and financial companies, Shinhan Card plans to build a MyData platform by the end of the year where users can check and apply for credit score improvements, credit card issuance, loan limits, and preferential interest rates.

Shinhan Card expects that platform workers using the MyData platform will receive reasonable credit evaluations based on highly reliable income data and obtain customized financial benefits better suited to them from regulated financial institutions. Additionally, this service will be linked to Shinhan Card’s personal business CB (Credit Bureau) project, allowing platform workers operating as individual business owners to receive various benefits.

The MyData demonstration project is being promoted by a consortium consisting of four companies centered on Shinhan Card: KCB (Korea Credit Bureau), Mesh Korea, a platform company operating the food delivery service Burung, and Link Asia Management, a platform company for freelance one-person marketers.

A Shinhan Card official said, "This project is meaningful in that it enables platform workers to lead better financial lives in line with the recently spreading gig economy trend," adding, "We will fulfill our corporate social responsibility in connection with Shinhan Financial Group’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategy."