Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller.

Whether you’re a new immigrant, an expat moving for work, or a foreign student, getting issued credit when your credit history resides in another country is frustratingly difficult. That’s changing as incumbents and fintech startups continue to work on coming up with a solution.

American Express is announcing it has joined forces with a cross-border credit reporting startup, Nova Credit (https://www.novacredit.com/), to launch a first-of-its-kind digital capability that enables newcomers to the U.S. to share individual credit reports from five international bureaus when applying for an American Express U.S. Personal Card and potentially get approved instantly.

This makes American Express the *first global payments company to offer immigrants and expats to the United States the ability to use Nova Credit’s Credit Passport technology* to instantly translate certain international credit reports into a U.S. equivalent credit report and score during the online Card application process.

Sara Milsten, svp of new member acquisition for U.S. consumer services at American Express, is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Before we jump into the interview, I wanted to invite you to Tearsheet’s latest event, The Embedded Conference. A big theme on this program and in our reporting has been about how financial services are showing up everywhere — in B2B software platforms, in retail, in transportation and travel. The Embedded Conference brings together financial services, fintech, and vertical industries looking to create new financial products. We’ve got a great speaker lineup — register today by going to our website and clicking on the Embedded Conference button at the top right of your screen.