AEO & R3 Score Expand Entrepreneurship Program for Returning Citizens

New Underwriting Tool Enhances Opportunities for Under-Served Market

WASHINGTON, DC, Sept. 29, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NewMediaWire -- The Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO) and R3 Score Technologies, Inc. ("R3 Score"), a newly-formed public company via a reverse merger with Global Boatworks Holdings, Inc. (OTC PINK:GBBT), today announced the launch of Endeavor Ready 2.0 to offer community-based lenders enhanced tools to bring clarity to de-risking and underwriting loans for returning citizens.  The R3 Score tool examines alternative data points not included in a traditional credit score or background check, enabling Community Development Financial Institutions (“CDFIs”) to better navigate underwriting for entrepreneurs living with criminal records. R3 Score is a first-of-its-kind AI powered FinTech, software-as-a-service (SaaS) company providing criminal justice risk models.

“This program is critical to help demystify and destigmatize the lending process for returning citizens,” says Connie Evans, AEO President & CEO.  “We look forward to working with R3 Score and community lenders to give returning citizens access to capital and an opportunity to achieve economic success.”

“The Association for Enterprise Opportunity’s mission is a critical one -- it provides pathways to meaningful self-employment and economic freedom to historically under-served populations,” said Theresa Bedeau, Community Impact & Investment at Capital One. “Capital One is proud to support the Endeavor Ready program as its entrepreneurs build their businesses, establish financial well-being and secure their futures.”

R3 Score was co-founded by a nationally recognized criminal justice advocacy team and is led by Laurin Leonard, the CEO and President. Laurin co-founded R3 Score with her mother as a result of their lived experience with mass incarceration and built this startup to provide businesses and financial institutions with new risk models to assess consumers with criminal records. R3 Score’s proprietary software is based on a multi-factor algorithm of more than eleven holistic factors assessing character, capacity and continuity of choice.

“There are more than 70 million Americans currently living with some form of a criminal record, and every single one of those individuals is at a disadvantage when modern risk models are used. By having a record, individuals experience a drop in their consumer credit score so when entrepreneurs with records seek small business loans they are often at a double disadvantage. We know this consumer profile struggled to gain access to PPP loans at a critical time, so we are excited to partner with AEO at this time in our country’s history,” said Laurin Leonard, R3 Score Co-Founder & CEO.  Leonard added, “Within the last 90 days data has been released by a major credit score provider showing that they are adding new user consented data, similar to R3 Score, and there is a proven 13.2% lift in rate of return, which validates the notion that more data improves outcomes for lenders and borrowers.”