- Earnest and Nova Credit are partnering to launch International Private Student Loans.
- Earnest is tapping Nova Credit’s Credit Passport to leverage consumer-permissioned, cross-border credit data.
- The solution is currently available to international students from India, Mexico, Canada, and South Korea.
Student loan refinancing site Earnest has teamed up with Nova Credit to launch International Private Student Loans. The new tool enables select international students to access flexible loan options, competitive interest rates, and personalized repayment terms tailored to their needs.
Offered by Earnest, International Private Student Loans will leverage Nova Credit’s Credit Passport solution that taps into consumer-permissioned, cross-border credit data. With Credit Passport, borrowers can share their credit information from their home country when they apply for a loan. Nova Credit will share the borrower’s credit history with Earnest and offer a relevant score corresponding to that history.
“We believe that access to credit should be borderless, and financial barriers should never hinder someone’s pursuit of education or opportunity,” said Nova Credit CEO Misha Esipov. “The U.S. is home to nearly one million international students who not only fill our universities with the brightest minds from around the globe but also bring those lessons to accelerate our economy for generations. By partnering with Earnest, we can provide more students the financial access they need to arrive and thrive.”
International borrowers that are eligible will have access to Earnest’s loans without needing a cosigner on the loan. Currently, the International Private Student Loans product is available to international students from India, Mexico, Canada, and South Korea pursuing a Master in Business Administration, Master of Laws/Juris Doctorate, or Master of Science in Engineering program at select schools. The loans can be used for tuition, housing, living expenses, and other education-related costs.
Nova Credit was founded in 2016 with an aim to extend credit to an entirely new set of potential borrowers– immigrants. In addition to the company’s Credit Passport solution, Nova Credit offers Cash Atlas, a tool that analyzes bank transaction data to provide lenders with a Fair Credit Reporting Act consumer report and generates a borrower risk profile to assess their affordability and ability to pay.
Nova Credit also offers a direct-to-consumer tool that provides new-to-country borrowers access to a marketplace where they can browse and apply for credit cards, phone plans, and loans using their foreign credit history.
San Francisco-based Earnest was founded in 2013 and offers student loans, personal loans, student loan refinancing, and marketplaces for tuition insurance, student credit cards, and home equity lines of credit.
Today’s news isn’t the only development in the international student lending space this month. Last week, global payments platform Flywire announced it had teamed up with Tencent’s fintech arm, Tencent Financial Technology, to help Chinese students pay for education abroad.
Photo by Vasily Koloda on Unsplash