Chinese internet companies are battling it out to create credit ratings based not just on citizens’ finances but also their social networks, raising fears that Big Brother could take up residence in consumers’ wallets.
Sesame Credit and other credit rating systems are responding to a glaring need for a credit rating database in a country that has seen rapid growth in personal credit cards, mortgages and online payments systems. About a third of Chinese own credit cards, up from 15 per cent five years ago.
Pilot programmes have drawn on users’ social networks, purchasing behaviour and even time spent on the phone as proxies for creditworthiness, spurring American Civil Liberties Union policy analyst Jay Stanley to call the programme “nightmarish” and warn against its adoption in the US.