Europe-based credit information provider CRIF has expanded its Open Banking-powered consumer credit solution to the UK, enabling more people to access affordable, responsible credit during the current economic climate. CRIF’s credit scoring solution, which is now available to UK banks and lenders, utilises Open Banking technology to securely connect to a consumer’s current account and access real-time, in-depth information on their financial situation.

CRIF then categorises this data to profile spending behaviours, financial health, affordability, identity, cashflow forecast, and even credit risk, whilst also allowing financial institutions to identify any business development opportunities – for example, offering cheaper insurance deals. Building on traditional credit checks, CRIF’s automatic, real-time profiling and insights allow lenders to improve both the quality and speed of their decision-making. CRIF’s solution enables more consumers to access financial products that are right for them without being wrongly declined due to a lack of up-to-date financial information or potentially having to turn to higher-cost options.

As well as this, Open Banking data allows consumers to be evaluated for their creditworthiness even if they have a limited credit history, including those who haven’t borrowed before or recently, or those who are new to the country. CRIF’s consumer credit scoring service is connected to over 3,200 banks and has already benefited millions of consumers and hundreds of thousands of SMEs across Europe. To date, over 150 major lenders are leveraging CRIF’s Open Banking proposition to automate processes, lend more, and decrease risk.

This service gives both local and global players the unique benefit of a single point of access to data and locally adapted categorisation and analytics on 15 European countries. .