Freelancers have income. Bankuish wants them to have credit, too.

José V. Fernández still remembers the frustration of trying to rent an apartment in Manhattan. The Spanish native had a strong background in banking and proof of income, yet every application failed for one simple reason: he had no U.S. credit history.

“I spent weeks crashing on a friend’s couch because no one would lease me an apartment,” Fernández [pictured above] told Refresh Miami. “Eventually I had to pay six months upfront just to get a one-year lease.”

That experience became the starting point for Bankuish, the Miami-based fintech he later founded to rethink how creditworthiness is measured for workers whose income falls outside traditional employment.

Before becoming a founder, Fernández built his career in European banking, specializing in credit risk. A government-backed project later brought him to the United States, where exposure to the startup ecosystem shifted his trajectory.

“I landed in the U.S. and saw founders moving fast, testing ideas, and going after massive problems,” he said. “I wanted to be part of that.”

His first venture, Atlas, focused on blockchain-enabled lending across West Africa. While working with gig workers in markets like Senegal and Ghana, Fernández noticed a familiar pattern: people with consistent economic activity were excluded from credit because their income did not fit standard definitions of stability.

“The banks saw these workers as untouchable,” he said. “But when you looked at their data, you could see reliability and patterns. The problem wasn’t risk. It was how risk was being measured.”

That insight led Fernández to launch Bankuish in March 2020, at the height of the pandemic. Starting alone during that period brought emotional and operational challenges.

“It was lonely to start a company during COVID,” he said. “For the first year, my dog was listed on the website as chief morale officer.”

Bankuish’s core idea is straightforward: convert alternative income signals into a usable credit profile. The company analyzes data from gig platforms, freelance marketplaces, and creator tools to generate a complementary credit assessment that lenders can use alongside traditional scores.

“The future of work is independence,” Fernández said. “But the credit system still assumes everyone has a stable paycheck.”

He argues that traditional credit models rely heavily on assumptions formed decades ago, when full-time employment dominated the labor market. As freelance and creator work expands, those models struggle to reflect real earning capacity.

“We’re approaching a tipping point where independent workers may outnumber traditional employees,” he said. “If that happens, financial infrastructure has to adapt.”

The company has gained traction across Latin America and is now focusing heavily on the United States, which Fernández expects to become Bankuish’s primary revenue driver. Over the past five years, the firm has grown revenue 21x and now operates with a lean team of 52 employees.

Headquartered in Wynwood, Bankuish maintains a strategic presence in Miami while keeping much of its technical workforce distributed.

“If you’re building across the Americas, Miami is the natural hub,” said Fernández, who was recently named an Endeavor Entrepreneur. “It connects markets, talent, and capital in a way that’s hard to replicate.”

Looking forward, Fernández sees major opportunity among freelancers, gig workers, and creators who generate strong income but lack access to financial products due to outdated credit frameworks.

“I’ve seen people earning serious money who still have to pay cash for major expenses,” he said. “We’re trying to give those individuals a financial identity that reflects their reality.”

Freelancers have income. Bankuish wants them to have credit, too.

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