It's a way for those who don't have much of a credit file to be able to use other financial transactions (banking activity) to proxy what their credit might look like.

They are making the assumption that people who don't bounce checks, or get overdrawn, or rack up lots of fees etc. could be good credits IF they were eventually extended credit.

It's an idea, but not a particularly new one.

There are Chinese non bank lenders who are using 1800 types of variables in their lending, mostly driven off cell phone data and social media information (!).

For example someone who is considered trustworthy might get their outbound phone calls picked up on the first ring - so that becomes a positive score in that kind of credit model.

Someone who is trying to borrow money in a city that they do not live (via geospatial phone tracking) might get a negative mark for that attribute.

Some of the firms there were starting with real blue sky and decided not to use cramped Western style lending decision trees.

Pretty cool actually, and they are also less used to privacy.

So those kinds of lenders require that prospective borrowers connect their phone to their system for total download.