Chris Rassen: Internet finance entrepreneur on the road

Chris Rassen (Chris Larsen) is a true entrepreneur and a practitioner of the spirit of Internet finance. Since 1996, Larson has founded three financial technology companies: E-loan, Prosper and OpenCoin, which, in Larson's view, have a common mission: To remove intermediaries and give direct control of information back to the public. "The scary thing about the financial industry is ' fish ', and I've been thinking about how to break out of Wall Street models when we created Prosper and E-loan. "he said. After the creation of the OpenCoin and Ripple system, Larson has extended the concept of freedom of choice and general benefit from the information field to the area of currency and payment settlement. E-loan in 1996, Larson and Janina Paulski (Janina Pawlowski) co-founded e-loan--, a company that accepts online mortgage applications. At that time, the Internet concept as a scourge in the entire United States to suck gold, the cost of information production and dissemination is decreasing, information asymmetry phenomenon is also gradually eliminated, which is to break through the monopoly of middlemen and high cost of a good opportunity. Larson and Paulski have raised 450,000 of dollars to friends and relatives, and founded E-loan in Palo Alto, California, starting the business. U.S. home mortgages rose 70% to $1.5 trillion in 1998 as interest rates cut. Riding the East Wind, E-loan soared. James Marks, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, said that while online lending accounted for only 4.2 billion dollars, E-loan lent 5000 of the money, accounting for 25% of the internet market, ahead of other rivals. The brutal thing is that for emerging internet companies, success does not necessarily lead to profits. E-loan needs to spend 250,000 dollars a month on pay for more than 150 employees, while also carrying out expensive advertising campaigns. As a result, Paulski and Larson face the Internet world is now also a common choice: give up holding, the company to sell high prices, become millionaires, or find other sources of funding, continue to do their business. Intuit Corp., the financial software giant, has thrown hydrangea, but asked Larson and Paulski to relinquish control of the E-loan. The two founders were caught in the 33.38,-0.62,-1.82% of a timely move by Yahoo to buy E-loan 23% on a 25 million dollar price, E-loan the brand, and Larson and Paulski continue to run the company. Although E-loan eventually sold it to a bank in North America in 2005, what happened to E-loan in the next few years might be what Larson had never wanted to miss in his life. Breaking the credit score "savage" rules fair Isaac Company's FICO consumption credit scoring model is the mostMainstream credit scoring mechanism. The three largest consumer credit scoring agencies in the United States (Trans Union LLC), Ipsos (Experian) and Aikefei (Equifax) all use this mechanism. The FICO score was the determining factor behind the billions of credit-lending decisions, but fair Isaac ordered that any institution be barred from releasing its FICO rating to ordinary consumers (unless their loan application was rejected). It is time to challenge these slightly "savage" terms. In February 2000, E-loan online a service that allows consumers to view their credit scores for free: my e-loan. Within one months, the service attracted 25,000 customers, but this fair Isaac company. Under pressure from Fair Isaac, Ike, which provided data to E-loan, forced E-loan to shut down the service. But Larson and his e-loan have challenged the monopoly behind the data, and after 4 months of E-loan, Fair Isaac said it intended to loosen the rules and put online a e-loan-like site. While Fair Isaac's approach is slightly ironic, Larson's challenge has in some ways been successful. Fair Isaac's new website will allow consumers to view their credit scores at a certain price, as well as provide personal guidance to consumers to improve their credit scores. At the same time, the alliance announced that it would provide similar operations. Later, FICO scores began to be fully disclosed to ordinary consumers, under pressure from the California government, as well as from congressional, Industrial and consumer-protection groups. In 2003, the federal government signed the "fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act" (Fair and Accurate Transactions Act), which allows consumers to obtain a free credit report every 12 months from the three major consumer credit rating companies. In cooperation with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the three credit rating agencies have established annualcreditreport.com, and personal credit reports have since entered the open free phase. 13 years after my E-loan service was launched, Larson said in an interview that promoting transparency in consumer credit scoring was his proudest achievement since he started his business. "People can see their credit scores and evaluate them to make direct loans," he said. This makes the appearance of prosper possible. "Prosper, the second company created by Larson, is also the first Peer-to-peer loan network in the United States. "Preaching" peer-to-peer lending "I'm frustrated with what E-loan can't do," Larson says. "On the one hand, people are getting better prices and services, but on the other side of the table, the big banks are still the boss." He saw a challengeThe traditional logic of opportunity: to allow ordinary people to become lenders and get higher returns. The Prosper company has tried a loan auction system to achieve ratings through bids. Prosper Company uses a "double blind" (double-blind) auction system, hoping to provide borrowers with one of the most economical way to borrow. This auction form is considered to maximize public interest and, depending on the preferences of both lenders, balances the borrower's investment in setting the terms of the loan with the speed and viability of the lenders and provides the best interest setting. Although the starting point is good, the auction system is too difficult to operate, it often takes a long time to raise the required amount. Prosper in 2008 and 2009, respectively, after the forced lockout and exceeded the expected default rate, in 2010 changed the original auction model, to the borrower default risk in advance set the loan interest rate, the second year, its loans increased by 200%. The prospect of a peer-to-peer lending industry may not be so clear without the positive input of Sen. Prosper as a leader. But as an entrepreneur, Larson has never thought of stopping here, going to the central encrypting money payment system Ripple, waiting for him in the front. Ripple: The central global currency financial system "asymmetric information is the key to all problems." Intermediaries use this relationship to hold capital resources in their hands, forming a ' plea ' relationship with the mother-may-i relationship. Finance is crazy and your money is charged on the way to Wall Street. With the help of the Internet revolution and the change in database technology, I have seen a more equitable path for everyone. "said Larson. The "fairer path" that Larson refers to is a centralized free electronic money payment system that injects new blood into the traditional system of financial payments. Him with Mt. Gox (the world's largest bitcoin exchange) developer Jede Galler (Jed Mc Caleb) hit, co-founded OpenCoin, dedicated to the development, operation and maintenance of Ripple Peer-to-peer Network payment system. The core mechanism of ripple is very similar to Bitcoin, but the ripple payment system supports a variety of currencies, including ripple currency and its fiat currency. In addition, the ripple network can realize the exchange and payment of a variety of networks, and on this basis to achieve Peer-to-peer network credit and personal network liquidation, and these supplies basically constitute a complete, central to the global monetary and financial system. The two-way flow of reality and virtual money, ripple is clearly more ambitious than Bitcoin. "Bitcoin or ripple coins will not be accepted by the whole world, but they must be the first step towards a mathematically based global monetary system." "said Larson.