Personal finance company Credit Karma is focusing on helping consumers understand financial resources available to them amid the COVID-19 crisis, CEO Kenneth Lin told Cheddar Thursday.
Lin said the company is tracking both government and private aid to help keep its customers informed.
"When there are forgiveness programs, we want to make sure consumers are out in front of them and know that they're available to help them," he said. "One of the things we're trying to understand, and assessing, is can we track all of the programs that are available."
Lin said he expects dozens, if not hundreds, of programs "for the average consumer" and said it will be "a big challenge" weeding through them in order to find the ones its customers will qualify for.
Credit Karma, founded in 2007 and "born in the last recession," according to Lin, is seeing more usage and engagement, even as the economy falters and unemployment claims continue to rise.
"What we are seeing across the industry is more consumers are looking for personal loans… more and more people are looking for mortgages," he said, though Lin said there aren't enough people in call centers or appraisers to get users through the processes.
"So, while rates are low, the system is somewhat frozen," he said.
President Donald Trump is talking up a joint venture investing up to $500 billion for infrastructure tied to artificial intelligence by a new partnership formed by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank. The new entity, Stargate, will start building out data centers and the electricity generation needed for the further development of the fast-evolving AI in Texas, according to the White House. The initial investment is expected to be $100 billion and could reach five times that sum. While Trump has seized on similar announcements to show that his presidency is boosting the economy, there were already expectations of a massive buildout of data centers and electricity plants needed for the development of AI.
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