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Built for You: Navigating the Financial System with MyMAF

Written by Alex Torres on .

Maybe you’re stretching every paycheck. Maybe you’re saving for something big, like a home or your immigration fees. Or maybe you just want to know where you stand. Either way, you’re already working hard for your money.

MyMAF is a free app that helps you see your savings, your credit, and your goals in one place, and make a plan for what comes next.

A Tool Rooted in Listening

Group at a table conducting an interview

The first step in building MyMAF: Listening. We listened to our community as they told us other financial products didn’t feel made for them. We then used those learnings and combined them with the latest technology to honor their experiences. We know that there are plenty of other financial apps that just talk at you in confusing and difficult-to-understand terminology. We wanted to offer you something different. It was important to us that MyMAF didn’t create more barriers when you tried to use it. We designed it to be easy and simple to use. It works whether you have two minutes on a break or an hour at the kitchen table. 

This app is for everyone. You don’t need to already be in good financial health to get started. It doesn’t require a perfect credit score or an already established goal, but it can help you work towards both.  We also tried to eliminate barriers by making sure that MyMAF is free, secure, and available in multiple languages.  

Woman holding phone and smiling

What MyMAF Helps You Do

We believe everyone deserves financial health. MyMAF can help you formulate a clear plan for your future. 

Reach Your Goals, One Step at a Time

Your dreams are important and unique to you. Whether you are simply trying to establish an emergency savings fund or have a larger goal in mind, like saving for a down payment on a home or funding an immigration process, MyMAF can help. The app helps you create a personal plan to reach those goals by breaking them down into manageable steps that you can track and celebrate as you progress. 

Understand Your Credit Score Clearly

Cell phone with FICO score and a magnifying glass

Credit scores confuse a lot of people, and MyMAF tries to fix that. We show you your FICO® score and explain what the numbers actually mean instead of leaving you to guess. We give you clear information on what you need to build your score so that you understand what it takes to move forward in your credit journey.  

For many of our clients, MyMAF is the first time they’ve been able to check their credit score on their own. One couple recently shared this after completing a Lending Circle. While it was explained to them that the program would help them build their credit score, it didn’t feel real to them until they actually saw their scores change. By checking their official FICO®  and seeing those higher numbers, they felt driven to immediately schedule an appointment to meet with our team and continue their work.  That’s the whole point of MyMAF: helping you reach your goals and celebrating you along the way. 

Learn What You Need to Know, When You Need It

A financial coach sitting with a client, looking a cellphone

Confidence comes through learning and understanding. That is why the lessons in MyMAF are kept short. We wanted to avoid lengthy technical modules and answer your questions on the topics that matter to you the most.

  • Emergency savings: Simple methods to build a cushion for your family.
  • Debt management: The safest approach to paying off what you owe.
  • Entrepreneurship: Clear steps to start an LLC or become successfully self-employed.

MyMAF is a part of a larger supportive community. The app is designed to complement human coaching, not replace it. Our coaches are here for when you want to talk something through. 

A Community Built on Trust

MyMAF is a trusted, community-led space. We designed it with you and your needs in mind. 

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We offer easy-to-navigate tools and resources from experts who truly care about your family’s stability. You have already shown how strong you are by navigating these systems; now you don’t have to do it alone. We are proud to support you in this work.

Getting Started

Download MyMAF for free and check your credit score in a few minutes. It’s available in English and Spanish.

Want to talk it through with a person? Our team can help you understand your score and plan your next step, including joining a Lending Circle.

What Eight Years of Building MyMAF Taught Us About Trust

Written by Ibrahim Balde on .

Imagine someone like Rosa…an immigrant who’s spent the last few years building her financial life in the U.S. She makes $28,000 a year, pays her bills on time, and has never missed a payment. She has no credit history. When she downloads a financial app she found on social media, she hits a wall: Social Security number required, English only. The platform wasn’t built for her.

In 2026, financial and immigration vulnerability are no longer parallel crises. They’re the same one. With 51.9 million immigrants in the U.S., 41% report worry that they or a family member could be detained or deported.

Given the growing legal risks and detention, financial security is important to ensure families are prepared to navigate uncertainty. 

Many digital financial services are intended to help people on their journeys, but the wall Rosa hits navigating commercial products isn’t a coincidence. It’s structural exclusion. And the stakes for immigrant communities have never been higher.

We built MyMAF to ask: What does it look like when technology is actually built for the communities we serve?

What We Built & Why It Worked

When we launched MyMAF in 2018, we weren’t starting with a feature list. We were starting with these core beliefs: people are the experts in their own lives, and in order to build meaningful technology, we need to meet people where they are.

Our biggest job has always been to listen and support, not prescribe.

The COVID-19 pandemic tested that belief. Usage exploded, not because we were promoting the app, but because people needed somewhere to turn.

While clients were accessing emergency resources through our programs, combined with MyMAF, they were tracking their credit, learning valuable information, and defining meaningful goals.

The app worked because it had been built to reinforce the relationship our clients had with their financial lives.

Here’s What’s New

MyMAF in 2026 has built on this foundation.

For someone like Rosa, one of the most meaningful changes might seem small: she can pull her credit score without a Social Security number.

For undocumented users and ITIN holders, that has historically been a dead end. Now it’s a starting point.

From there, the app gives users access to Learning Resources and financial education content built for the lens of low-income immigrant communities.

And it doesn’t stop at learning. Users can Create Goals, turning knowledge into action and building toward something real. The app becomes a place to return to, not just a one-stop reference.

The platform runs natively in English and Spanish, with 24+ additional translations. Because of clients like Rosa, language is an important part of this iteration.

MyMAF is your financial coach in your pocket — the credit tools, learning resources, goal-setting, and an AI assistant that answers questions and surfaces guidance along the way.

On the horizon: a personalization engine that builds paths specific to each user’s situation, a Resources Finder that surfaces programs and benefits matched to real eligibility, and Community Insights that captures what people in similar situations are learning and doing.

The Camino Digital pilot, funded by the Remitly Foundation, is live now. It’s testing whether MyMAF can serve as a genuine entry point into digital financial participation for communities that have never felt welcome in that world. We’re targeting 1,000 activations in 2026. We’re learning in real time, from the clients and coaches who use it every day.

A Solution Rooted in Trust

For someone like Rosa, MyMAF doesn’t have to be a wall. It can be a starting point — a place to set a savings goal, track a credit score, and return to it week after week. A place that holds space for a financial plan, and that’s still there when uncertainty hits.

That’s the version of MyMAF we’re building. A tool that earns trust through language, design, and the relationships it’s built to support.

Eight years taught us this: the communities most excluded by financial systems are not hard to serve. They’ve just never been the priority.

With MyMAF, we build from the ground up; for the people who’ve always deserved better.

Learn more about MyMAF.

New MyMAF Financial Education on Self-Employment

Written by Ramya Gopal on .

MAF’s clients often turn to creative strategy to manage their financial lives; faced with barriers to accessing formal income opportunities, our clients innovate. One such strategy we’ve seen is self-employment: 31% of our clients identified as being self-employed, small business owners, or contractors. Moreover, we’ve heard from our DACA clients that they face barriers in accessing formal employment opportunity. Self-employment allows individuals to capitalize on their strengths to overcome some of these barriers.

We’re excited to announce the release of a new feature in MyMAF to support clients on their journey toward self-employment. 

In September, the MAF Lab launched a new education content module in MyMAF app called How to be self-employed – alongside the launch of our MAF’s new 0% interest loan program to help people formalize self-employment into an LLC. This new product feature and program are both important parts of MAF’s broader efforts to support the innovations our clients develop in order to navigate their financial lives and formalize their business to generate steady income.

MyMAF’s How to be self-employed module combines education with tools to take action.

The new module covers all aspects of starting a small business, including setting a vision for self-employment, building a business model, formalizing self-employment through LLCs, and managing time as an entrepreneur. It’s the fourth financial education content module available in the app, adding to ones on credit, savings, and preparing for emergencies.

Our staff in-house wrote the content building on their expertise in supporting entrepreneurs to start their own business. We also sought the feedback from our peers at nonprofits who similarly strive to support entrepreneurs. Similar to MyMAF’s other financial education modules, How to be self-employed pairs expert content with recommended action items and resources to give individuals tangible tools to get started.

We aim to continue to support the creativity of our clients to create sustainable income solutions.

Introducing MAF’s new mobile app: MyMAF

Written by Ramya Gopal on .

MAF is excited to announce the launch of its new mobile app, MyMAF. MyMAF is a virtual financial coach designed to help low-income and immigrant families achieve their dreams and help MAF’s clients succeed financially in our programs.

We’ll be celebrating the launch of the MyMAF app, the MAF Lab’s first fintech product, on December 7th. Join us for the launch party to view a demo of MyMAF and learn about the inspiration for its development, from idea to fruition.

MyMAF fills an unmet need for the communities MAF serves.

Since day one, MAF’s goal has been to build pathways that allow hardworking families to realize their full economic potential. MAF’s seminal Lending Circles program has helped clients achieve their financial goals by building credit, but we’ve always had a larger vision to support our clients’ financial lives across their hierarchy of financial needs. We found financial coaching to be one of the most effective mechanisms to help people achieve their goals. However, in-person coaching is often resource intensive (for both coaches and clients) and difficult to scale. We realized that we could use the power of technology to bring financial coaching to more people in our community and serve their needs in a deeper way.

With MyMAF, members of our community are now able to obtain essential financial information and coaching at the reach of their fingertips.

MyMAF was built from MAF’s core values.

MAF’s work is founded on a few core values:

  • We meet people where they are, not where we think they should be
  • We build on what people have, no matter the shape or size
  • We respect the diverse communities we serve and recognize their hidden strengths

These values have informed the development of MAF’s programs and products from the beginning; they are also the foundations of this new app.

To meet clients where they are in their financial journey, we first recognize that our clients’ financial lives are inseparable from their complex backgrounds and personal aspirations. For example, a client without a Social Security Number has to take a different path for doing something as seemingly simple as pulling their credit report or applying for a credit card. An important goal of the app is to remove the stress from financial planning and help clients recognize that this is a tool to help them achieve their dreams. This is done at their convenience, allowing clients to decide when and where they plan and update personal financial goals – whether at home, waiting for the bus, or any other moment in their busy lives. As an added engagement feature, clients can interact with a virtual financial coach and receive financial tips and tricks to keep in mind as they navigate their journey with MyMAF. By building for clients’ unique contexts, MAF sets the stage for personal finance to feel empowering.

To respect our clients as the experts in their own lives, MyMAF gives clients the autonomy to direct their financial journey. Clients decide where they want to begin, whether it’s learning about credit or watching a video about exploring their investment options. The app also gives clients the option of choosing from 70+ action items to work towards, providing clients with a structure to create their own action plan. The app empowers clients to set the agenda based on what is most relevant to them and supports them with resources, tips, and motivation to get to their goal.

To build on our clients’ strengths, the app takes inspiration from what clients are already doing to manage their financial lives. Much like Lending Circles, the tips and action items in the app reflect informal strategies that clients currently use to overcome their financial barriers. This app gives clients the ability to choose from a wide breadth of options that are already working for them, rather than prescribing choices that don’t fit their contexts.

The author (R&D Lab Director) and UX/UI Designer test a prototype of MyMAF with a client.

MyMAF was built using evidence-based principles.

The MAF Lab, Mission Asset Fund’s R&D team, is committed to building products using design thinking, the industry standard for product development teams. Based on conversations with clients and MAFistas who have worked in this community for years, we identified the unique painpoints that our clients experience that other products don’t help them address. We then built and tested prototypes of the app’s features with 40+ users in Spanish and English, iterating those designs until we got all the details just right. Here’s the MAF Lab process we followed:

This process helped us identify and build features in the app that distinctly serve our clients. For example, during our user discovery process, we learned that some of our bilingual clients wanted the flexibility of accessing resources in both English and Spanish. To address this, we made the app available in both languages with the ability to easily switch between the two. The process for launching MyMAF app is one we plan to continue following in-house to develop new products and programs.

Lastly, evidence about effective financial coaching influenced the structure of MyMAF. Research shows that financial education is not sufficient to motivate behavior change; education must be tied to action. MAF incorporated this principle into the design of the app by placing action items after educational content to mirror users’ mental models of creating financial plans – and by sending motivating reminders to encourage users to stay on track with their financial plans. These design elements nudge clients to most effectively realize their financial goals.

MAF is built from the community, for the community.

By involving users in every step of our process, we sought to recognize the unique cultural background of our clients through the app.

MAF’s 10 years of serving low-income and immigrant families was foundational to developing the app. For example, our in-house client services team wrote all the content in our app, to address the questions they have been hearing in working with the community. For example, we offered users tips to help our clients answer questions like “How do I protect my finances if a family member is deported?” and issues like what steps to take when sending a money transfer to family or friends outside the U.S.  

MAF also designed the app to make our clients feel seen. MyMAF includes avatars, created by a designer from Mexico City, that reflect the faces of the diverse communities we serve. The app also includes photographs of real clients taken by our in-house designer and resident photographer. When we tested the app, the images were the first thing many clients noticed. Many told us that they identified with the people represented on the home screen and in the photos. This emotional connection to MyMAF will likely motivate our clients to continue engaging with the app’s financial tools.

Avatars in MyMAF to represent the community MAF serves

We’re just getting started.

MyMAF is a continuously improving product. We’re excited to get the app in the hands of our clients and hear their feedback as they use the app. We’re also measuring app usage and financial outcomes, to test our assumptions about the impact the app will have. Based on what we’ve learned so far, we’re already working on creating MyMAF 2.0 to give users more targeted tools to help them achieve their financial goals and make MAF’s financial products more broadly accessible.

Our plan is to continue iterating MyMAF to financially empower the low-income and immigrant families we serve nationally.

We also want to thank the philanthropic supporters of MyMAF: JPMorgan Chase Foundation, Tipping Point Community Foundation, Capital One, Twilio, and individual donors across the country.