FAILURE FORUMS

When credit reporting became available we launched a credit building loan product. It was a short-term, low-cost loan to help people begin to build credit histories. We began with personal finance training, ordering the customer's credit report, and then setting goals to build or rebuild their credit histories. We have a credit coach that helps members create an action plan to maintain good credit and have seen astonishing results. We had found that 55 percent of the folks coming in our door had no credit histories at all. Many of our clients went from no file, to building a score in the low 600s after the first year. Most that did have credit files had scores nearly 100 points below the national average of 700. The credit builder loan helped members clean up bad debt and rebuild their credit histories. The CBA evolved to create a system/service for "soft pull" of credit reports that didn't impact credit inquiries on the customer credit file... We knew many of a tribal members lacked..