Abound expands access to affordable loans with ClearScore Group’s D•One

The ClearScore Group’s Open Banking business unit D•One has partnered with UK-based alternative lender Abound to provide Open Banking connectivity and transaction categorisation intelligence.

Through the partnership, Abound will take Open Banking data for prospective borrowers from D•One, with that data used to assess affordability for ClearScore users as soon as they search for a loan.

D•One supplies Abound with bank transaction data at the beginning of customers’ loan searches, which is processed by Render, Abound’s AI credit engine, to enable more informed decision making.

The intention is to provide broader access to affordable loans, while significantly reducing credit risk.

Tim Kelleway, director at D•One, said: “Open Banking helps assess borrower risk more fairly, which is a positive innovation for the credit market.

“Abound is one of the most advanced lenders in the UK in terms of leveraging Open Banking data to drive greater financial inclusion. As Abound scales in the UK, it is drawing on D•One’s specialist expertise in transaction categorisation to help make affordability assessments in milli-seconds.”

According to Michelle He, co-founder and chief operating officer of Abound, traditional lenders are still relying on credit scores, which exclude many low-risk people “simply because they are credit invisible”.

“At Abound we see Open Banking as a unique opportunity to transform lending and we have proved that this technology can help us both serve more people and improve credit performance,” she added.

“D•One and ClearScore align perfectly with our mission to expand access to affordable loans.”

In July, UK-based unsecured consumer credit provider NewDay went live with D•One’s Open Banking connectivity and transaction categorisation products, while in the same month, digital bank Zopa Bank added D•One to its roster of partners.

At the start of the year, social purpose lender Salad Money teamed up with D•One, to improve the accuracy and speed of its affordability assessments.

At the Open Banking Expo Awards 2023, Abound was named as the winner in the Best Open Banking Data Project category.