Rice research explores how shopping data could reshape credit scores

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Everyday data like grocery store receipts can help expand access to credit and support upward mobility. Photo by Boxed Water Is Better on Unsplash

More than a billion people worldwide can’t access credit cards or loans because they lack a traditional credit score. Without a formal borrowing history, banks often view them as unreliable and risky. To reach these borrowers, lenders have begun experimenting with alternative signals of financial reliability, such as consistent utility or mobile phone payments.

New research from Rice Business builds on that approach. Previous work by assistant professor of marketing Jung Youn Lee showed that everyday data like grocery store receipts can help expand access to credit and support upward mobility. Her latest study extends this insight, using broader consumer spending patterns to explore how alternative credit scores could be created for people with no credit history.

Forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing Research, the study finds that when lenders use data from daily purchases — at grocery, pharmacy, and home improvement stores — credit card approval rates rise. The findings give lenders a powerful new tool to connect the unbanked to credit, laying the foundation for long-term financial security and stronger local economies.

Turning Shopping Habits into Credit Data

To test the impact of retail transaction data on credit card approval rates, the researchers partnered with a Peruvian company that owns both retail businesses and a credit card issuer. In Peru, only 22% of people report borrowing money from a formal financial institution or using a mobile money account.

The team combined three sets of data: credit card applications from the company, loyalty card transactions, and individuals’ credit histories from Peru’s financial regulatory authority. The company’s point-of-sale data included the types of items purchased, how customers paid, and whether they bought sale items.

“The key takeaway is that we can create a new kind of credit score for people who lack traditional credit histories, using their retail shopping behavior to expand access to credit,” Lee says.

The final sample included 46,039 credit card applicants who had received a single credit decision, had no delinquent loans, and made at least one purchase between January 2021 and May 2022. Of these, 62% had a credit history and 38% did not.

Using this data, the researchers built an algorithm that generated credit scores based on retail purchases and predicted repayment behavior in the six months following the application. They then simulated credit card approval decisions.

Retail Scores Boost Approvals, Reduce Defaults

The researchers found that using retail purchase data to build credit scores for people without traditional credit histories significantly increased their chances of approval. Certain shopping behaviors — such as seeking out sale items — were linked to greater reliability as borrowers.

For lenders using a fixed credit score threshold, approval rates rose from 15.5% to 47.8%. Lenders basing decisions on a target loan default rate also saw approvals rise, from 15.6% to 31.3%.

“The key takeaway is that we can create a new kind of credit score for people who lack traditional credit histories, using their retail shopping behavior to expand access to credit,” Lee says. “This approach benefits unbanked applicants regardless of a lender’s specific goals — though the size of the benefit may vary.”

Applicants without credit histories who were approved using the retail-based credit score were also more likely to repay their loans, indicating genuine creditworthiness. Among first-time borrowers, the default rate dropped from 4.74% to 3.31% when lenders incorporated retail data into their decisions and kept approval rates constant.

For applicants with existing credit histories, the opposite was true: approval rates fell slightly, from 87.5% to 84.5%, as the new model more effectively screened out high-risk applicants.

Expanding Access, Managing Risk

The study offers clear takeaways for banks and credit card companies. Lenders who want to approve more applications without taking on too much risk can use parts of the researchers’ model to design their own credit scoring tools based on customers’ shopping habits.

Still, Lee says, the process must be transparent. Consumers should know how their spending data might be used and decide for themselves whether the potential benefits outweigh privacy concerns. That means lenders must clearly communicate how data is collected, stored, and protected—and ensure customers can opt in with informed consent.

Banks should also keep a close eye on first-time borrowers to make sure they’re using credit responsibly. “Proactive customer management is crucial,” Lee says. That might mean starting people off with lower credit limits and raising them gradually as they demonstrate good repayment behavior.

This approach can also discourage people from trying to “game the system” by changing their spending patterns temporarily to boost their retail-based credit score. Lenders can design their models to detect that kind of behavior, too.

The Future of Credit

One risk of using retail data is that lenders might unintentionally reject applicants who would have qualified under traditional criteria — say, because of one unusual purchase. Lee says banks can fine-tune their models to minimize those errors.

She also notes that the same approach could eventually be used for other types of loans, such as mortgages or auto loans. Combined with her earlier research showing that grocery purchase data can predict defaults, the findings strengthen the case that shopping behavior can reliably signal creditworthiness.

“If you tend to buy sale items, you’re more likely to be a good borrower. Or if you often buy healthy food, you’re probably more creditworthy,” Lee explains. “This idea can be applied broadly, but models should still be customized for different situations.”

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This article originally appeared on Rice Business Wisdom. Written by Deborah Lynn Blumberg

Anderson, Lee, and Yang (2025). “Who Benefits from Alternative Data for Credit Scoring? Evidence from Peru,” Journal of Marketing Research.

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In an interview with InnovationMap, Carolyn Rodz, CEO and founder of Hello Alice, explains how the partnership came about and how the program will significantly move the needle on equitable access to capital for small business owners. Photo courtesy of Hello Alice

How this Houston innovator is providing small businesses unprecedented access to capital

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Last month, Hello Alice — now with 1 million members in its community — announced a new program with MasterCard that provides small business owners a simpler way to unlock access to capital.

The Hello Alice Small Business Mastercard offers users expert business advice, business insights, cash back, and a rewards program that gives entrepreneurs points for completing business-advancing activities on the Hello Alice platform.

"As a small business owner myself, I've created a card that I wish I would have had," Carolyn Rodz, CEO and founder of Hello Alice, tells InnovationMap. "We really looked at where are the gaps for these business owners and the things they don't already have or are unable to access."

In an interview with InnovationMap, Rodz explains how the partnership came about and how the program will significantly move the needle on equitable access to capital for small business owners.

InnovationMap: How did this partnership come about to provide this this unique credit card for small business owners?

Carolyn Rodz: We have been looking at ways to support business owners along their capital journeys for a long time. Since we started Hello Alice access to capital has been the number one barrier for small business owners, and that's only magnified when we look at business owners of color and our new majority business owners that we focus on. And so it made natural sense as we went down a path of conversations with MasterCard initially around how do we create something, particularly in a world where accessing capital, which would be daunting for business owners.

There's a lot of talk around venture capital and getting loans and what that growth journey looks like. But the reality is most business owners understand a credit card — they understand how it works. So, that was a great starting point for us. Then we looked at what are some of the issues with cards — all business cards particularly or commodities. They're typically an afterthought from a lot of the financial institutions that offer them. We're seeing a lot of these emerging fintech companies that are rolling out cards, but even for them, the small business audience is typically an afterthought. They're really focused on tech companies and very rapid growth businesses.

It felt like mainstream small businesses were really getting lost in this conversation, so that was where we really wanted to tackle. How do we solve some of these problems — how do we create benefits that are actually meaningful to small business owners? Things like one-on-one coaching and helping them get access to workshops that will help them along their growth journey. Things that they can redeem points for experiences and opportunities that that may not otherwise be accessible through a lot of these business owners.

The other piece that we wanted to support is the large group of businesses that don't qualify for a traditional credit card. And so we, in tandem with our unsecured credit card, also launched a secured card. And the idea for that was that we could actually roll out a credit quality tool. So, in conjunction with all the education and wraparound services that we're offering, there's a six- to nine-month process that a business owner — if they have poor credit history — can go through to build up that credit with a secured credit card and then seamlessly transition into an unsecured card. It's an opportunity to take that first step toward building and growing their business and accessing the capital that they need to grow.

IM: How does this initiative target the inequality in access to capital for small business owners?

CR: Well, nine out of 10 of business owners are relying on their personal credit card when they're applying for financing. When we look at entrepreneurs of color, the rate of low credit score for them is two to three times higher for Black and LatinX entrepreneurs specifically. So for us, this is the importance of building in conjunction with our creating equitable access to credit program that is much broader, frankly, than the card itself, but offering the wraparound services around it, making sure that we are providing the secured to unsecured seamless transition plan.

We're also working with the First National Bank of Omaha, and the reason we selected them at the bank, they're the largest privately held bank in the country. This also gave us the flexibility to really look at alternative underwriting models and the the opportunity to learn through all of the insights that we're gaining around these small business owners. We're trying to figure out how do we start to look at some of these alternative data points and identify not just the financial history of a business owner.

There are a lot of circumstances that lead to poor credit scores, whether it was for a health circumstance that they endured or veteran business owners who may have no credit history because they've been overseas for a long period of time. We're looking at what are some of the data points that are indicating that a business owner is more likely to succeed and more likely to repay the credit that they've taken on. We know already through a lot of research and data points that having a business plan automatically makes you more likely to repay your your debt. Or the fact that you are getting positive feedback from mentors is a strong indicator that you're going to be more likely to pay off some of those debts. And so we're really looking at what are some of these things that may be overlooked but are frankly more indicative of who the business owner is and the potential for their for their business and their opportunities to be able to repay credit that they take off.

IM: What type of small business owners do you feel like this is a really good solution for? What all can they expect from the program?

CR: As a small business owner myself, I've created a card that I wish I would have had. When I started this company, I really looked at what was available to the market. This credit card, like many cards, offers benefits that are pretty standard in the market right now. Things like cash back, extra points, and kickers for certain spends that are relevant to small business owners. But again, we really looked at where are the gaps for these business owners and the things they don't already have or are unable to access.

What we discovered was there are lots of accelerators, programs, and workshops and things — but they're expensive. So, there's an opportunity here. We work with our network of partners that we have for Hello Alice that are traditionally paid or have a cost to roll them out and offer business owners points and earnings that can be spent toward that.

Mentorship, as you know, is a huge, huge barrier, particularly when we look at our new majority entrepreneurs, so all of our cardholders get access to one-on-one coaching for this card. And we've really focused on areas that are primary interest to them, things like business strategy, operations, and financing for their businesses.

And then the other important piece of this is leveraging our partner network. We have so many partners that we work with at Hello Alice, companies that are offering products and tools and services to small business owners. With this card, we're opening up additional discounts beyond what we've already negotiated standards for all of our community, whether it's an extra discount on things like QuickBooks, Salesforce, or different tools that they might be using. We have over 70 affiliate partners that we've already brought into the program working with more every week right now, which is really exciting.

We're also trying to find new opportunities — where can we bring the most benefit these business owners in a way that grows with their company and that, as they're spending and creating traction with their company, our team is working behind the scenes to unlock more and more opportunities every stage of that journey.

IM: Do you feel like this program is a response to the growing challenges small businesses have been facing over the past few years?

CR: I mean, our business certainly had a hell of a couple of years, and 89 percent of small business owners in our community, which is now over a million business owners strong, claim the access to capital is limiting their growth potential. Where we focus a majority of our energy as a company is unlocking those barriers.

As we dig into that, what we're seeing is access to capital — whether that's early days as a credit card or a grant funding, or later stage with loans or even venture capital — is that we need to address this by helping to unlock that journey for business owners, but also making sure that we're supporting them with the opportunities that are relevant to their own stage of growth.

The other piece is revenue generation. We always want to focus on the core and sustainable business health of a company and making sure that they're bringing in revenue and that they've created a business model that actually works and is scalable. We're working a lot on providing them not just money into their business or outside capital, but how do we actually help them generate revenue and clear capital in all the stages unless they have that capital? How do we actually help them deploy that capital in meaningful ways will help them grow their business?

All of the wraparound services that come with the core of what Hello Alice offers — and certainly with this credit card we're getting a deeper layer of insight, because we know more about the businesses, we know how they're spending, what they're doing. We're really learning about how do we additionally support this cohort of business owners with the right wraparound services, making sure that they're getting the right thing at the right time.

What's interesting is that and the reason we really started with the credit card is that 50 percent of small business owners have a personal credit score of 680 or better, and that's strong enough to apply for most business credit cards. However, that score locks them out of getting a business loan, which typically requires a score of 720 or better to qualify. So we're able to tap into a cohort and help them grow this pool of capital in the earliest stages. But really making sure that we're giving them the growth tools that ultimately free them up to go get that loan, to go walk into a main street bank and have that power of choice along their capital journey.

In general, we focus a lot on access to capital. We deployed over $37 million in small business grants to date, and we're continuing to grow that pool. We're actually working right now on an equitable access to capital fund, which will allow us to utilize those grants to actually pay the security deposit for select business owners who may not qualify for additional credit.

Ultimately, this is a really tangible way to work with financial institutions, MasterCard, and our broader partner ecosystem. We haven't seen the statistics move in decades. How do we actually open up more capital to business owners that otherwise wouldn't qualify for it? And this is our our first of many steps toward towards putting a really tangible stake in the ground.

IM: What about the challenges of the pandemic — how do you see COVID-19 and its shutdown affect small businesses?

CR: For us, like many businesses, I think the pandemic was it shook everything up. I think we had a plan and a path forward that always entailed unlocking access to capital and unlocking opportunity — that has never changed for us. But it accelerated a lot of things. We had planned to deploy grant funding in 2020 independent of the pandemic. When COVID hit and we saw these businesses struggling, we quickly pivoted. We accelerated that plan significantly. We started deploying grants within weeks of shelter in place — even before PPP had been announced and before businesses were accessing any government support. We were among the first to offer emergency grants and put us in a really strong position to grow that program and again to accelerate the rollout of that, which is now turned into a much larger program.

That really was, I would say, the acceleration of our entire early stage access to capital continuum. And what we learned from that was how much capital these business owners actually need. The process gave us a lot of information that that has really helped roll out the broader continuum of capital for us. We launched our lending marketplace with over 92 small business lenders all focused on fair and equitable funding, which is available over all as well. And so these credit cards round out that early stage access to capital.

But when we look at our new majority cohort — and even many white male businesses — we have to get business owners of all types that are struggling with access to capital. Everybody's willing to give money to business owners that have traction, that are doing well with their business, that are on a growth path. But it's very hard to get the traction that big investors need, and that's always really struggle.

The pandemic accelerated a lot in this space. It made us realize that the opportunity here is actually much greater to support these businesses and also got a lot of attention from partners. We've been having these conversations for years, frankly, prior to the pandemic. And everybody recognized there was an issue, but I don't think they realized the impact of the issue until COVID hit, and small businesses were the ones that kept operating and made sure that we were getting the resources that we needed to continue to live in a time when everything was a little bit uncertain.

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This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Small business owners now have a new option for their credit and financial support needs, thanks to Hello Alice and Mastercard. Image via Getty Images

Houston small biz tech platform launches entrepreneur-focused credit card

hello credit

When you're a small business owner, every service you sign up for or institution you open an account at should be a helpful partner on your business journey. At least, that's how Hello Alice sees it.

The Houston company has partnered up with Mastercard and First National Bank of Omaha to provide small business owners a suite of financial services with their line of credit. The Hello Alice Small Business Mastercard will offer users expert business advice, business insights, cashback, and a rewards program that gives entrepreneurs points for completing business-advancing activities on the Hello Alice platform.

“We designed the Hello Alice Small Business Mastercard to meet the needs of small business owners where they are, breaking longstanding barriers to mentorship, access to credit, and overall financial health for those who have traditionally been denied access,” says Elizabeth Gore and Carolyn Rodz, co-founders of Hello Alice, in a statement.

“In times of economic boom and bust, access to capital remains the leading challenge for all small business owners, and particularly for New Majority owners, which is why we continue to focus our efforts on expanding the capital continuum beyond our existing grants and loans programs,” the duo continued.

Offered as a traditional credit card, the Hello Alice Small Business Mastercard provides users with credit-building opportunities. Business owners with a limited or poor credit history also have the opportunity to a secured version of the credit card that still provides full benefits from the program.

“Small businesses are the backbone of our communities, yet too often face significant obstacles in securing the resources they deserve, particularly if the owners come from underserved communities,” says Linda Kirkpatrick, president for North America at Mastercard, in the release. “The launch of the Hello Alice Small Business Mastercard is an important step in our mission to build a more inclusive digital economy by providing small businesses with the financial tools and capital they need to thrive, while also advancing our half-billion-dollar commitment to help close the racial wealth and opportunity gap for Black communities.”

This initiative is the latest announcement from Hello Alice’s Equitable Access to Capital program, which is focused on increasing access to the capital — as well as financial products, tools, and education — small businesses need to grow sustainably and power the national economy. By 2025, according to Hello Alice, approximately $70 million in grants could fund credit enhancements for approximately 30,000 business owners, unlocking up to $1 billion in credit access.

“FNBO has been committed to helping small businesses succeed for 165 years, and we are proud to partner with Hello Alice and Mastercard in this vital initiative to elevate all small businesses,” says Jerry J. O’Flanagan, executive vice president of Partner Customer Segment at First National Bank of Omaha.


The new credit card will provide credit and financial advice, support, and education to small business owners. Image via helloalice.com

Houstonians are carrying sizable debt into the new year. Photo via LivingDice.com

This is how much credit card debt the average Houstonian carries, says report

MONETARY MISFORTUNE

Residents of Houston are nursing New Year's hangovers of another kind — credit card debt.

According to a LendingTree study of the 50 largest U.S. metro areas, Houston consumers rank fourth for the highest median amount of credit card debt to ring in the new year: $3,720. In second place is Austin ($3,911), with Dallas at No. 7 ($3,560). San Antonio holds down the No. 14 spot ($3,414).

Hartford, Connecticut, claims the dubious distinction of ranking first in this category, with median credit card debt of $3,994.

Matt Schulz, LendingTree's chief credit analyst, says people with good credit and high income typically are more inclined to carry bigger credit card balances, since they usually have access to higher credit limits. But he notes that a significant number of younger consumers carry a high amount of credit card debt.

"When you're young and don't have a lot of financial experience, that scary combination can lead to more debt, especially for those living in big, expensive cities," according to LendingTree.

By another yardstick, Texas' four major metros fare much better in the LendingTree study.

Houston ranks 38th for the share of credit card users with debt (81.1 percent). Austin ranks No. 21 (84.7 percent), followed by Dallas at No. 37 (81.2 percent), and San Antonio at No. 48 (75.7 percent).

LendingTree researchers used an anonymized sample of more than 40,000 My LendingTree users from the first 15 days of December 2020 to estimate the percentage of credit card users carrying debt into 2021. They also relied on that data to compile median credit card debts.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Tesla self-driving mode wasn't to blame in Houston-area crash, report suggests

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Federal safety investigators looking into a runaway Tesla that killed a grandmother in her home say the driver had pressed the accelerator to full speed, suggesting the vehicle's self-driving software was not to blame.

The driver had told police that he had the self-driving software turned on, but a report from the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that he had actually overridden that feature when he pushed hard on the pedal. Moments later the Tesla Model 3 raced down a residential street in Katy, Texas, at highway speeds, slammed into a brick home and killed a 76-year-old woman standing in the front room.

The crash last month drew national attention because Tesla CEO Elon Musk is seeking to reassure the public its self-driving feature is safe as he prepares to turn hundreds of thousands of Teslas already on the road into fully automatic vehicles and begin selling two-seated Cybercabs missing steering wheels and pedals.

The crash came two months after officials at a separate federal agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, announced it was elevating a 2024 investigation of the self-driving feature to new “engineering analysis” level, raising the possibility of a recall of 3.2 million Tesla vehicles.

That NHTSA probe was triggered by crashes where the self-driving feature failed to alert drivers to take control in fog and other poor visibility conditions.

The agency opened an investigation last year into 58 incidents in which Teslas reportedly violated traffic safety laws while using self-driving technology, leading to more than a dozen crashes and fires and nearly two dozen injuries.

Separate from the National Transportation Safety Board, NHTSA is also looking into the Tesla house crash in Texas, one of 46 “special crash” investigations of Tesla's self-driving or driver-assistance technology in the past decade, according to the agency’s records. In more than a dozen of those crashes, at least one person — a driver, passenger or pedestrian — was killed.

Tesla had originally called its driver assistance software Full Self-Driving, or FSD, but auto experts and regulators complained it was misleading because drivers must always keep their eyes on the road and be ready to take over at any time.

The company has since changed the name to Full Self-Driving (Supervised).

Video of the Katy, Texas, accident shows the Tesla traveling at more than 70 mph (112.65 kilometers per hour), jumping a curb then tearing across a lawn before crushing through a brick wall of a home. A woman standing feet away, Martha Avila, was found amid piles of crumbling plaster, split beams and bits of furniture and rushed to a hospital but died.

Sales of Tesla cars still haven't recovered fully from boycotts last year over Musk's political stands, but the stock is rising anyway as he has successfully shifted attention away from the sales figures. He says they matter less now that the company is on the cusp of major technological advances, such as turning Teslas into hands-free vehicles and having its Optimus robots take over for humans for tasks at home and work.

Tesla stock has risen 22% in the past year and is currently trading at 170 times expected annual earnings compared to 20 for the S&P 500.

For its second-quarter financial results, financial analysts surveyed by FactSet expect earnings per share will barely budge — 32 cents versus 33 cents a year earlier — continuing a sixth quarter streak of flat or falling profits.

London AI startup selects Houston for first U.S. office after $20M raise

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London-based AI firm Applied Computing has announced a $20 million Series A round and a new office in Houston.

The new Bayou City office is Applied Computing’s first in the United States and part of its North American expansion. The company is known for its Orbital AI platform, which is tailored for energy operations.

The funding round was led by Houston-based KBR Inc., with participation from San Francisco-based Databricks Ventures. KBR’s investment was first announced in March.

KBR and Applied Computing have also entered into a multi-year agreement to deliver exclusive AI products for the energy sector. KBR already has integrated Orbital into its INSITE 3.0 platform for energy projects, and is also using the product for ammonia production.

Applied Computing’s Orbital platform combines physics-grounded intelligence with models across chemical engineering, time-series forecasting and language, according to the company. The system analyzes sensor readings and can recognize a facility’s equipment constraints and operator activity. The platform can also allow technicians to run simulations of how a change to a facility could affect the rest of its operations.

According to TechCrunch, Applied Computing will use the $20 million to further explore projects and deployments with the energy sector, hire engineering and research positions, and continue to expand internationally, potentially into the Middle East.

The company is also working on deals with a major U.S. stream operator, TechCrunch reports. And Applied Computing shared on LinkedIn that it plans to announce its first partnership with a major European oil company in the coming weeks.

“Yesterday we showed Orbital live in deployments at our demo day at the Energy Institute in London,” Callum Adamson, CEO and co-founder of Applied Computing, posted on LinkedIn on July 16. “Today, we're announcing the capital to scale it globally as well as the launch of our new offices in Houston and Bangalore. In the weeks following, there will be more announcements on our progress, partnerships and deployments.”

The company opened its Bangalore offices in December.

Texas is no longer America's No. 1 most financially distressed state

Report Rebound

After spending an unfortunate year as the No. 1 state with the most people in financial distress, Texas has slightly recovered. But the Lone Star State isn't out of the woods yet: it's still among the five most financially distressed states in America for 2026.

According to WalletHub's 2026 report, Texas sits in the No. 4 spot this year, while Kansas, Louisiana, and Florida moved up to become the top three states with the most financially distressed residents.

The personal finance website's experts compared all 50 states based on residents' average credit scores, the share of people with "accounts in distress" (meaning an account that's in forbearance or has deferred payments), the one-year change in bankruptcy filings from March 2025, and search interest indexes for "debt" and "loans."

Despite improving in the overall ranking, the study found Texas has had the fourth-biggest spike in bankruptcy filings nationally from March 2025 to March 2026. Texas residents also have the 10th worst average credit scores in the country, according to the findings.

This is how Texas ranked across the study's six key dimensions, where No. 1 means "most distressed:"

  • No. 4 – Change in bankruptcy filings from March 2024 to March 2025 rank
  • No. 5 – Average number of accounts in distress rank
  • No. 8 – "Loans" search interest index rank
  • No. 8 – People with accounts in distress rank
  • No. 12 – Credit score rank
  • No. 13 – “Debt” search interest index rank

It feels like inflation and affordability have been top-of-mind for many Americans over recent years, and uncertainty around the national economy also adds another level of distress. That's especially true for Houston residents, which were dubbed the second most financially distressed people in America earlier in 2026.

"Americans have faced significant financial challenges in recent years, as inflation, shifting unemployment levels, public health emergencies, and natural disasters have made it more difficult for many households to stay on top of their bills," the report said.

The top three states that have the least financially distressed residents are Maine (No. 50), Rhode Island (No. 49), and Hawaii (No. 48).

The top 10 most financially distressed states in America for 2026 are:

  • No. 1 – Kansas
  • No. 2 – Lousiana
  • No. 3 – Florida
  • No. 4 – Texas
  • No. 5 – South Carolina
  • No. 6 – Wyoming
  • No. 7 – Georgia
  • No. 8 – California
  • No. 9 – North Carolina
  • No. 10 – Kentucky
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A version of this article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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