Rollee: Data as the gateway to financial services for platform workers
Author: Martijn Arets
Rollee makes it easier for platform workers to access financing. Until now, it has been difficult to obtain a loan without a steady monthly income. Lenders want a clear picture of income in order to calculate a credit score. Rollee unlocks data from platforms, banks, tax portals and other relevant data sources for lenders. This should lead to fair access to financial services for all workers, says founder Ali Hamriti in this episode of The Gig Work Podcast by the WageIndicator Foundation.
Listen to this podcast episode on Spotify
Outdated system
The idea came to Hamriti, who is Moroccan-French, when he was working at a fintech company in Paris that provides loans to small businesses and the self-employed. ‘I noticed how difficult it was for freelancers to provide financial institutions with enough certainty about their income to get a loan,’ he says. "The problem is that self-employed workers and platform workers are not employees and therefore do not receive monthly payslips. Their income varies from month to month. This makes it difficult for lenders such as banks to assess their creditworthiness, and they are often denied loans.‘
He knows that not having a payslip does not mean that they are not creditworthy. ’On the contrary: in Europe, you sometimes see that people can earn more as freelancers than in salaried employment, with more freedom," says Hamriti. ‘Yet they are often excluded from financial services because the current systems are not organised for this. Bank statements show payments and income, but banks simply have too little context for that income. This inspired me to build a new system.’
Retrieving and sharing data
The basis of Rollee is a so-called API (Application Programming Interface): software that enables two applications to communicate with each other. ‘We link to alternative data sources about work, income and taxes,’ says Hamriti. ‘I discovered that you can get more contextual data via freelance platforms and tax portals, for example.’
The result is an open platform that allows workers to collect their platform data, income data, tax data, payslips and invoices, for example. Lenders can request and analyse all this alternative data on income and work via the API platform.
Insight into platform work
In the beginning, he focused mainly on platform workers. ‘They have more access to work via digital media, but not yet to financial services,’ he explains. ‘In emerging markets such as Africa and India, current platform workers were previously invisible to lenders because they worked informally. They found their customers through word of mouth, and payment was in cash.’
But now they are increasingly working via digital platforms such as Uber and Upwork. ‘That suddenly makes their work and income transparent,’ he says. ‘If they can share that overview with lenders, it opens up opportunities for financial services such as credit.’
100 integrations
‘Our goal is to give as many people as possible access to the financial system,’ says de Hamriti. "We started by focusing on platform workers, but it is also suitable for other workers with variable incomes. With Rollee, banks can make better-informed and fairer decisions about the creditworthiness of all types of workers. It is a solution for all kinds of financial service providers: from leasing companies and banks to insurers."
Rollee works with all kinds of companies and agencies, such as the Tax Administration and banks. They now have more than 100 integrations with freelance platforms, tax portals, payment systems and digital wallets. No direct cooperation with platforms is required.
How does Rollee work in practice?
A platform worker who wants to take out a loan from a financial service provider that uses Rollee logs into the accounts he uses to perform gigs via the Rollee environment. This gives the system access to the platform accounts. Rollee can then retrieve information about work and payments. The lender can then use this data to calculate a credit score.
‘We offer a quick and easy way to integrate data,’ says the entrepreneur. ‘We have both API and no-code solutions, so even large companies can add our system quickly and easily.’
The Rollee team helps service providers determine which data they need to analyse for different types of workers. Hamriti emphasises that workers remain in control of their financial data. ‘You decide who can access your data.’
Privacy and statistics
Rollee does not store any personal data, he explains. ‘We only facilitate the transfer of data between workers and lenders. When a worker links their bank account or platform data, the data is sent directly to the selected third party. After the transfer, we only store statistical data, such as average incomes per country.’
Rollee's mission is to make the financial system fairer. That is why they do share statistics with financial service providers. ‘This enables us to help lenders better tailor their acceptance criteria to modern workers,’ says Hamriti. ‘For example, they can adjust their criteria if it turns out that freelancers with a slightly lower income are still financially stable.’
Hamriti is also looking to collaborate with modern lenders. ‘In the long term, we want to help workers find the best interest rates and financial terms via our fintech partners,’ he says. ‘Companies such as Revolut and Monzo can make competitive offers via our platform. This allows workers to get a fairer, better deal based on their actual income rather than general credit rules.’
International cooperation
Hamriti is currently focusing on Europe and the United States. Emerging markets such as Africa, Asia and Latin America are also very interesting for Rollee. ‘We have already helped companies in Nigeria and Kenya, where digital payments are often better developed than in Europe,’ he says. "We work with banks and lenders that operate in several countries. That makes sense, as freelancers in the platform economy often work across borders.‘
Rollee is also in dialogue with governments about regulations surrounding data sharing. Hamriti sees that France and the Netherlands, for example, are rapidly improving their digital services. ‘And there is a major European project to develop a digital identity card,’ he says. ‘This will make data exchange increasingly easier.
This offers opportunities for growth for our company. After all, financial institutions need a uniform, secure API to access different data sources. We can help with that."
Rollee versus GigCV
What makes this conversation so interesting to me is that Rollee has both similarities and differences with my own initiative: GigCV. This is an API that allows platform workers from affiliated platforms to download an overview of their work experience in the gig economy. Via an open standard, they can easily obtain an overview of their reputation and transaction data on platforms.
The more platforms share their data, the more valuable such a CV becomes. That is why I am seeking cooperation with platform entrepreneurs. In practice, it remains difficult to convince enough parties of the strategic advantage of sharing data. Moreover, they have to integrate the GigCV API. Rollee takes a different approach. This initiative does not depend on the cooperation of the platforms, because they log in on behalf of the workers. This allows them to scale up much faster. In addition, the data is immediately usable: banks already use this information to calculate risks, but the problem was that they simply did not have access to it.
I predict that platform data and data portability will become increasingly important. Regulations such as the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the European Platform Work Directive mean that data will no longer be shared only on request, but will be available immediately and in real time. Large platforms must give their users access to data and offer free tools for data exchange, such as APIs. This gives users more control and stimulates innovation. Article 9, paragraph 6 of the Platform Work Directive confirms this right within digital labour platforms. This is good news for the future of initiatives such as GigCV and Rollee, and therefore for platform workers.
Want to know more? Listen to the full podcast with Ali Hamriti here.
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