What Eight Years of Building MyMAF Taught Us About Trust
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.