How this startup helps minorities reach financial wellness

As an international student at MIT, Rishi Kumar says he didn’t have access to any banking resources on his own. Now, as the founder of financial wellness platform Kashable, he hopes to help other minority groups build a solid financial foundation and bring more equity to the financial services industry.

Kashable provides financial education, low-cost loans and credit checks, partnering with companies and HR departments to provide this resource directly to employees.

“We have to figure out how to make the whole population included in institutional finance,” Kumar says. “We have to build up things like their credit score and see how that enables them to uplift themselves.”

Many minorities are underserved in the current financial system — often penalized by high interest rates and unable to bolster their credit score. Lenders deny mortgages for Black applicants at a rate 80% higher than that of white applicants, according to 2020 data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act.

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Following the 2009 crisis, approval rates for required credit scores for loan approvals ticked up, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Predominantly Black and Hispanic zip codes found themselves under approval lines. The pandemic has only exacerbated the problem: many minority communities have found themselves under the proverbial dotted line.

Kashable allows companies to see past low credit scores and expand their benefit offerings to include those who are either being excluded by banks and market lenders or worse — falling prey to their high interest rates and premiums.

Kashable integrates itself directly into companies’ HR and payroll systems, making it so that employees can easily repay their loans as they would any other benefit. The financial wellness platform also prevents borrowers from exceeding the amount they can — or should — apply for. The dollar amount Kashable loans out is based on what the employee can afford according to their own HR data, rather than what the employee believes they need.

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The provider aims to better individuals’ financial literacy and practices, too, according to Kumar. Employees must repay their first loan in full before borrowing another. Additionally, they’re in the process of onboarding live financial coaches as an educational resource for their clients.

While loans are available for all employees, minority groups make up more than half of all of Kashable’s applicants: 34% are Black, 14% are Hispanic and 3% are Asian borrowers, according to Kashable. This data points to the fact these groups are not being given the same opportunities from the financial services industry, Kumar says.

“Often the communities that are underserved are those in greater need,” Kumar says. “All we had to do is not continue to suppress them and be inclusive in our outreach.”

Employers have been expanding their financial wellness benefits in the wake of the pandemic.

Employees are turning to their companies to fill in knowledge gaps in their finances, which has led to changes such as more than a third of employers providing information about Social Security (38%) and Medicare (35%) benefits, according to research from the TransAmerica Center for Retirement Studies.

“Employers have to understand their place in employee’s lives when it comes to things like retirement planning or offering a health safety net,” Kumar says. “We have to find a way to elevate those on the other side of the dotted line, otherwise they’re never going to get to a place where they have equitable access to financial markets.”