Score, the dating app for people with good credit, is back

Two years ago, Luke Bailey had what became a controversial idea for a program – a dating app called Score for people with excellent credit.

Launched just days before Valentine’s Day, the program required users to have at least 675 credits to sign up. At the time, Bailey said he created the app to encourage friends to talk more about personal finances since doing so is often difficult for many people.

“Ninety-four percent of people say their partner’s debt is a reason to consider divorce,” Bailey told TechCrunch. “Financial cooperation is one of the most important aspects of a relationship, but there is no direct way to communicate.”

The program had its share of detractors, with many calling it classist because it focused on those who use money well. However, the program, which was supposed to be available for 90 days, was so popular that Bailey kept it for six months. It gathered 50,000 users and made headlines around the world for what happened.

So, it leftand everything returned to normal in the world of lovers. Until Friday.

Bailey told TechCrunch that he has made his decision bringing back Score – good, this time.

“We originally launched the Score to integrate financial responsibility into something people care about most – love,” Bailey said. After closing, we decided that the conversation would continue without us.

Instead, he said that people kept asking him why he closed it. “Students have come to want to learn how to live,” he continued. “It became clear that this wasn’t just a problem, it went into something that wasn’t resolved in the nature of the relationship.”

This time, Score will be available on the iOS App Store (the last time it was just a mobile app, he said, because he and his team built it very quickly). Bailey also said the program will be more inclusive, considering what has been said to have been predictable. “Now, anyone can join.”

There will be two stages: an introductory stage, where no ID or credit verification is required, and anyone can check in and connect. Then the verification phase, where members must verify their ID and credit to unlock the startup. The app uses Equifax to verify personal information and credit scores, when users give permission for the app to do so. It only does what Bailey described as a soft pull, so there’s nothing to do with credit.

“We do not keep full credit reports or personal and financial information. We only receive confirmation that someone meets the verification requirements,” he said.

The verified system includes features that allow people to see other members nearby, see who has saved their profile, send video clips of potential matches, and send messages to users before a game.

He is still bullish on the job of many loans, saying that it is not a measure of wealth but instead of consistency. “Banks look for the same thing in customers that we look for in relationships – consistency and reliability,” he said. “Dating apps measure stupidity. We measure frustration and accountability.”

Bailey said the app doesn’t store any personal information, doesn’t sell personal information, and protects everything using encryption.

The last iteration of the Score collected more user data, helping to show how each generation has been affected by social trends. For example, it found that millennial men had about 11% more debt than women. But for Gen Zers, the difference was much smaller, with only 3% of men in debt.

“We will be seeing how the data (of) has changed,” he said.

The original Score was a US-only experiment, he said, but this time, the company plans to expand globally, starting with Canada. Look at other associations, he said.

“Financial status is one of the strongest predictors of life expectancy,” Bailey said. “We believe that collaborative algorithms should reflect this.”