THERE’S MORE TO ITS FuTuRE THAN CRYPTO

More Loans to Go Around Ten years ago, the financial crisis choked off credit for almost everyone– especially lower-income Americans and business owners deemed too risky by banks and traditional lenders. But it also ignited efforts to provide more access to credit, and to replace payday loans with better products—like those created by FS Card, which Marla Blow (below) founded in 2014 after stints at Capital One and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The company’s Build card charges an APR of about 30 percent—higher than credit cards; far lower than payday loans— and comes with a chatbot that nudges customers to pay bills early. The company has extended $50 million of credit to over 100,000 Americans, and is seeing big banks tiptoe back into the arena. Blow isn’t worried. “This is a space that’s still intensely underserved,” she says.