Why we created Aster Key
Lenders and finance apps cannot safeguard our information
THE PROBLEM WE FACE
Many of us receive notices from companies letting us know the financial data they stored about us has been compromised, i.e., hacked.
Sometimes these notices are from lenders or finance apps. In other instances, the servers of companies that run the aging credit rails of the United States financial system get hacked. For example, hackers compromised Equifax and made off with the data of 140 million Americans.
Everywhere we look, personal and financial data such as our birth dates, emails, social security numbers, passwords, account numbers, and account balances are hacked from the servers of traditional and fintech companies all the time. These hacks make it easier for identity theft and fraud to occur.
This erodes trust in our financial system.
APPLE DOES MORE TO PROTECT YOUR DATA THAN YOUR BANK
When you peel back the onion, you realize every lender does the same thing when you want a loan.
They send you an application to fill out. Every application functions the same and is not much different than older paper loan applications.
In the new digital loan applications:
The first few fields of the application are used to gather your personal information. If you exit the application, you have left breadcrumbs so lenders can market to you.
The rest of the application flow is to collect your financial information, including upload tools for tax returns and other documents.
At the start, there are a few problems:
Your personal identifying data is comingled with your financial data. Without much digging, a hacker knows who you are with financial facts about you.
Your data is stored on servers with 1000s of other people’s financial profiles creating large honeypots of data attractive to hackers.
Your lender uses a myriad of technology vendors creating hundreds of points of failure hackers can exploit.
The next time you fill out a loan application, it’s not a stretch if you begin to see the SUBMIT button as a SEND TO HACKER button.
