AperiData, the Open Banking credit bureau, today introduces its real time Open Banking credit score, AperiScore™. AperiData is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority as a Credit Reference Agency (CRA) and Open Banking Provider. Leveraging these authorisations, AperiScore™ will enable lenders to move beyond the boundaries of traditional CRA data, allowing them to score all applicants accurately in real time, including those with limited credit history or thin credit files.

The number of credit-invisible adults in Britain is growing rapidly, up from 5 million in 2022 to 5.6 million at the end of 2023. What’s more, one in ten adults have no credit history and face significant challenges when it comes to accessing mainstream financial services like mortgages, loans or credit cards.

By analysing millions of Open Banking transactions in combination with AperiData’s deep risk insights and state of the art models, AperiScore™ accurately predicts an applicant’s propensity to repay and generates a score. This serves to increase acceptance rates and enable greater access to financial products for the financially underserved.

One existing lender used AperiData’s Open Banking risk insights which resulted in 9 in 10 marginal declines being overturned and approved. A bank account credit score was a natural extension of their existing product suite to support fairer credit decisions and drive financial inclusion by increasing approval rates, reducing defaults, and providing greater access to financial products for the underserved.

Stephen Ashworth, Chief Executive Officer at AperiData, said: “AperiData is on a mission to improve financial inclusion by revolutionising credit scoring and lending processes, and modernising the way businesses access, understand, and utilise data to better serve their customers. Financial assessments should be fair and ethical, and grounded in the most accurate and up-to-date financial information which is why we have leveraged our powerful proprietary platform to enable a completely new approach to credit scoring and financial assessments.”

“AperiScore™ will empower businesses to say yes more and drive consumer trust by providing precise, real-time data that is accessible and accurately reflects their financial truth. Importantly, it works to nurture an environment of increased choice based on trust for both businesses and consumers.”

Ed Adshead-Grant, Non-Executive Director at AperiData commented: “Using real time bank data enables a step change in risk decisioning when compared with traditional scoring approaches. AperiData is effectively moving the world from batch to online, creating a whole new capability within the lending and credit scoring space. We look forward to driving the modernisation of the industry with the adoption of AperiScore™ for any lenders and traders who want the full financial truth.”

Simon Lyons, Chief Strategy Officer at obconnect, commented: “Since my journey in Open Banking began, I have believed - and still believe - that one thing makes the most material difference. The advent of a bank account-based credit score based solely on cashflow and cash position. This changes everything. This bank-based score can be aggregated with other sources to assess with a greater degree of accuracy than we ever thought.  AperiData have done exactly that, they have created the scoring metrics. This is exactly what Open Banking is for, I look forward to the adoption and next steps immensely.