Innovation

Innovation is more than coming up with new products. Innovation starts with people feeling free to think differently about the business. It’s about not being satisfied with success. It’s about not being afraid to fail. It’s about looking inside and outside for better solutions to customer needs.

Emerging technologies in the financial information and services space are driving innovation at Moody’s. Internally, new technologies are increasing efficiency in the ratings business. They are also being explored for ways to enhance MIS’s research and ratings. Moody’s Information Technology, part of Moody’s Shared Services, has been key to leveraging new technologies. It is important to look outside the company as well. Moody’s Analytics is an active participant in the fintech (financial technology) community. A serendipitous meeting between an MA staffer and an employee from Finagraph, one of the pioneers in fintech, led to a Moody’s equity investment in Finagraph in 2016. From that relationship came Moody’s Analytics Risk Quality or MARQ, a revolutionary way for small businesses and small business lenders to communicate. 

One relationship led to another, and soon MA was getting deeply involved in the fintech community. Partnerships with business accelerators FinTech Sandbox and RocketSpace followed. The next move was to install an innovation engine — MA’s Emerging Business Unit — to solidify the company’s commitment to identifying and developing new customer solutions suggested by the work of fintech startups. MA is helping startups by providing its extensive financial information database and assisting them with “proof of concept” work. Working with fintech startups has been energizing and inspirational for MA. 

Knowing that there is a lot of talent out there in the fintech space, MA is using the Meetup platform to gather like minds to discuss the hottest new technologies, like blockchain. Through Meetups and social media, MA is establishing itself as a thought leader in the space.

Inspiring Innovation

Today’s students will be the ones to solve social and business challenges in the future. We think it is important to inspire them to think creatively and strategically to find innovative solutions to problems.

We found in the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) the partner we needed to inspire young people to try their hand at innovative problem-solving. Together, The Moody’s Foundation and NFTE designed Moody’s Information to Innovation (i2i) Challenge. 

It’s a group challenge, in which teams of 2-3 high school students work collaboratively to come up with an app designed to address one of two problems identified in that year’s Challenge. In 2016, the competition’s second year, students could choose between creating an app that helps communities identify and solve problems, or one that helps users make healthy choices. 

In two years, the i2i Challenge has engaged hundreds of students from around the world. NFTE and Moody’s have also hosted Innovation Days in five countries, at which students and mentors from Moody’s can complete the Challenge in the course of one day.

Revolutionizing Credit for Small Business

A perfect example of innovation at Moody’s is MA’s Small Business Initiative. At the center of the initiative is the Moody’s Analytics Risk Quality, or MARQ, offering. At the MARQ portal, small businesses can provide their financial information to get their MARQ business credit score. The MARQ score helps the business understand how a lender would assess its creditworthiness. But the service doesn’t stop there. With the score comes context — a comparison of the company’s score to a typical score for similar businesses in the region, along with easy-to-understand information on what is helping and hurting the score and the ability to set an action plan to improve it. 

The MARQ portal demystifies small business credit so business owners can go into the borrowing process knowing exactly where they stand, and it makes borrowing much more efficient by enabling them to provide their information electronically to lenders. 

The MARQ portal was developed with Finagraph, MA’s small business fintech partner. Via this partnership, small businesses can also access Flight from Finagraph, which provides additional insight on the business’s financial position and suggestions for how it can improve and grow.

MA piloted MARQ with the Columbia-Harlem Small Business Development Center (SBDC) in New York City. SBDC consultants work with their small business clients on understanding and increasing their creditworthiness using MARQ. 

MARQ and Finagraph are currently available free to small businesses at marqscore.com and getflight.com.

Take Her Word, Not Ours: MARQ is Easy and Free 

When something comes along that can make a big impact and at the price of FREE I really take notice.

Moody’s MARQ provides ease of use for even technically challenged businesses. The process of signing up, connecting QuickBooks, and populating my dashboard took less than three minutes and I had a taco in one hand. 

I did a little cheer when our MARQ score returned higher than the benchmarked industry average and created a plan with the tools provided to help drive it up even further. Moody’s MARQ score and the education provided by the dashboard along with the visible and customizable action plan make abstract financial concepts relevant. Businesses will be empowered to make educated financial choices while seeing the impact on their credit in a meaningful way.

Beth Damis, MBA Comptroller at ILF Consultants, Inc.