Analytics software company FICO has announced a partnership with Open Finance data and payments platform Belvo set to expand credit access in Latin America. Per the press release, the two companies are developing an interpretable and explainable machine learning (ML) model that will provide a score based on consumer permissioned transaction-level data, targeted at increasing credit access for consumers, improving banks’ risk management, and enabling lenders to create personalised financial experiences for their customers.

The score is set to be available in Brazil later in 2023. Credit access through Open Finance and Belvo – FICO partnership details Developed by FICO’s AI Innovation and Development team leveraging AI techniques of the likes of interpretable neural networks, the Belvo Open Finance Score is set to produce a credit risk score based on Open Finance transactions from numerous financial accounts (credit, debit, current accounts, savings, investments etc) permissioned by the customers and processed through Belvo’s Open Finance infrastructure in a secure manner. The announcement further details that by incorporating data from additional sources, the score will offer an analytical tool for financial institutions (FIs) that will enhance their usage of existing credit bureau scores and internal models.

What is more, it can assist companies that do not have a mature analytics infrastructure in making better credit decisions. Albert Morales, Belvo’s General Manager in Brazil said that due to the expedited change in consumers’ behaviour following the pandemic, the company has an opportunity to bring new insights to lending decisions. Per their statement, Open Finance data offers an increasingly wide and updated picture of people’s and companies’ circumstances, and together with FICO, the company is capturing the predictive value from all this data and summarising it in a score set to help FIs make more accurate risk assessments and identify creditworthy people they could otherwise be currently missing.

Adding on this, Alexandre Graff, FICO’s senior vice president of Global Partnerships and Alliances advised that Open Finance data has the potential to make up an important component of a country’s financial and economic ecosystem, as showcased in Europe. The spokesperson believes the solutions that the company is developing in cooperation with Belvo could be a ‘game-changer’ for increased financial inclusion, and further FICO’s mission in helping more people get access to credit, as highlighted in their Global Financial Inclusion Initiative. Belvo strategy and offering Belvo is an Open Finance data and payments platform in Latin America enabling fintechs and FIs to access and interpret data as well as initiate payments from their end users’ accounts with the goal to power increasingly modern, secure, and inclusive products.

Its platform offers connections with more than 60 FIs in Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia and works with over 150 clients, including financial companies, be they B2B or B2C players, such as banks, credit providers, and personal finance management tools. .