Founded in 2013, SelfScore’s mission was to offer a way for international students with no credit score or Social Security Number to build credit in the United States with the SelfScore Mastercard.
Now, four years later, the company has rebranded itself and launched three new credit cards. Now Deserve, the company recently raised $12 million to launch the cards.
“After the success of our first card … which caters to students — particularly those students that come from out of the country — we decided to launch this product to allow the younger generation access to fair credit,” said Kalpesh Kapadia, founder and CEO of Deserve, in a statement.
Here’s how the new cards break down:
Deserve Classic
This is an unsecured credit card targeted to people who are new to credit and want to build a credit history.
Deserve Edu
This card is designed for college students, including international students, who want to build a credit history.
Deserve Pro
This card is meant for people who have an established credit history.
Access to credit and financial literacy are the building blocks of financial success and stability in the United States”
For those who are just starting out building credit, the Deserve Classic and Deserve Edu are solid options, especially if you can’t afford a security deposit for a secured credit card. And if you’re an international student who wants to stick around in the U.S., the Deserve Edu is a no-brainer.
You can even upgrade to the Deserve Pro once you’ve built a solid payment history on one of the other two cards.
“Access to credit and financial literacy are the building blocks of financial success and stability in the United States,” said Sameer Gandhi of Accel, one of Deserve’s funders. “We believe Deserve’s application of machine learning is a big opportunity to evolve past the antiquated FICO system in a technologically sophisticated way.”
Ben Luthi is a personal finance writer and a credit cards expert who loves helping consumers and business owners make better financial decisions. His work has been featured in Time, MarketWatch, Yahoo! Finance, U.S. News & World Report, CNBC, Success Magazine, USA Today, The Huffington Post and many more.
