Startup of the Week

Millions of people around the world remain excluded from access to credit—not necessarily because they are unable or unwilling to repay, but because traditional financial systems often lack enough data to assess them fairly.

ConfirmU is working to change that.

The company has built an AI-powered Behavioral Intelligence platform designed to help lenders better understand repayment behavior, creditworthiness, and customer intent. Rather than replacing traditional credit bureau data or application scorecards, ConfirmU provides lenders with an independent behavioral risk signal that can complement existing underwriting methods.

Through a short psychometric and behavioral assessment, the platform measures a borrower's repayment intent, helping financial institutions make more informed lending decisions—particularly for thin-file, new-to-credit, and underserved borrowers.

ConfirmU's models have been tested through commercial engagements and pilots with financial institutions across multiple markets, including Union Bank of India, Urban Money, Aditya Birla Capital, KreditBee, TNEX in Vietnam, AMK in Cambodia, Agrobank in Malaysia, and Vismotor in the Philippines.

Across its broader lending deployments, ConfirmU's behavioral scorecards have demonstrated AUC performance ranging between 0.68 and 0.72, Gini coefficients between 0.36 and 0.45, strong decile separation, and consistent monotonic bad-rate curves across India and Southeast Asia.

We spoke with the founder of ConfirmU about the personal experience that inspired the company, the challenge of building trust in a new approach to credit assessment, and the potential of Behavioral Intelligence to make financial systems more inclusive.

Tell us about ConfirmU.

ConfirmU is an AI-powered Behavioral Intelligence platform that complements traditional financial data by helping lenders better understand repayment behavior, creditworthiness, and customer intent.

Our objective is not to replace bureau scores or traditional application scorecards, but to provide an independent risk signal that can be used alongside existing underwriting variables.

Our models have been validated through commercial engagements and pilots with institutions including Union Bank of India, Urban Money, Aditya Birla Capital, KreditBee, TNEX in Vietnam, AMK in Cambodia, Agrobank in Malaysia, and Vismotor in the Philippines, demonstrating measurable improvements in underwriting outcomes across multiple markets.

We see Behavioral Intelligence as particularly valuable for thin-file and new-to-credit borrowers, marginal bureau rejects close to existing approval cut-offs, and markets where credit bureau depth and repayment histories remain limited.

What made you become an entrepreneur?

The idea behind ConfirmU came from a personal experience. We were renting out our apartment and encountered people who did not have a bank account and were therefore automatically ruled out as potential tenants.

I felt this was unfair. People should not be excluded simply because they lack traditional financial records. I believed there should be a way to assess people based on their behavior, integrity, and intent rather than relying exclusively on their financial history.

That experience made me think more deeply about how people are evaluated and ultimately inspired me to start ConfirmU.

How does Behavioral Intelligence work in practice?

ConfirmU was designed to measure a borrower's repayment intent through a short psychometric and behavioral assessment. The resulting score provides lenders with an additional perspective on risk without relying exclusively on bureau, demographic, income, employment, or social data.

Our work with financial institutions has shown how these behavioral signals can complement traditional underwriting.

For example, an evaluation with Union Bank of India demonstrated a continuous relationship between ConfirmU scores and probability of default: as borrower scores increased, observed risk consistently decreased. The comparison with traditional credit assessment also identified potential incremental approval opportunities where ConfirmU detected lower behavioral risk than traditional methods suggested, while simultaneously flagging borrowers who appeared potentially riskier than indicated by conventional scores alone.

In another large-scale validation exercise with Aditya Birla Capital, approximately 50,000 existing borrowers were invited to participate, with more than 2,190 completed behavioral assessments available for analysis. Approximately 80% of assessed borrowers were classified into lendable risk segments, while the model generated risk differentiation using behavioral responses alone.

We have also tested the geographic portability of our approach. In Cambodia, a validation with AMK Microfinance used a balanced dataset of 1,217 completed assessments. The resulting behavioral scorecard achieved a development Gini of 42.2% and a hold-out Gini of 44.6%, equivalent to AUCs of approximately 0.71–0.72. Importantly, as score cut-offs increased, default rates within the accepted population consistently declined.

These results support our belief that Behavioral Intelligence can provide a meaningful additional layer of information for lenders, particularly in emerging markets and among populations that are difficult to assess through traditional financial data alone.

What is the most challenging part of running your own startup?

One of the biggest challenges is building trust in the product and demonstrating clearly to clients how they can benefit from it.

When you introduce a new approach to an established industry such as financial services, having strong technology is not enough. You need to prove that the product works, that it can deliver measurable value, and that institutions can confidently integrate it into their existing decision-making processes.

Building that trust takes time, validation, and real-world results.

What is the biggest challenge you have faced when looking for funding?

One of the biggest challenges has been overcoming existing investor paradigms around emerging markets, founders' ability to execute in these markets, and the financial inclusion space more broadly.

There can sometimes be preconceived ideas about the opportunities and risks associated with emerging markets. Yet these are precisely the markets where alternative approaches to credit assessment can create significant value, because traditional financial data is often incomplete or unavailable for large parts of the population.

Changing these perceptions and helping investors understand both the commercial opportunity and potential impact remains an important part of the journey.

What is the most rewarding aspect of entrepreneurship?

The most rewarding aspect is seeing that the effort invested in building a product or solution creates a real impact and that people genuinely benefit from it.

For us, this means seeing how Behavioral Intelligence can help lenders make better decisions while potentially giving more people access to financial opportunities that might otherwise have been unavailable to them.

Knowing that something you have built can create measurable value and positively affect people's lives is one of the most rewarding parts of being an entrepreneur.

Building a More Inclusive Approach to Credit

ConfirmU's journey reflects a broader shift in financial services: moving beyond reliance on traditional financial histories toward a more multidimensional understanding of creditworthiness.

For the millions of people who are new to credit, have limited bureau histories, or live in markets where conventional financial data remains fragmented, the question is not simply whether enough historical data exists about them. It is whether lenders have the right tools to understand their actual repayment behavior and intent.

By combining Behavioral Intelligence with traditional underwriting, ConfirmU aims to help financial institutions identify hidden opportunities, manage risk more effectively, and make credit assessment more inclusive.

And for a company born from a simple observation—that people should not automatically be excluded because they lack conventional financial records—that mission remains at the heart of the business.

Learn more about ConfirmU on their website https://confirmu.com/