The UK-based tenant referencing company Keysafe has inked a partnership with Salt Edge, a leader in offering Open Banking solutions, to securely access tenants’ bank data without the need to acquire its own PSD2 licence.

Open Banking entered the rental market, with landlords now accepting tenants based on automatically aggregated bank data rather than traditional checks. Keysafe provides a comprehensive tenant referencing service to both private landlords and letting agents in the UK, including ID authentication and expert verification of references. Recently, Keysafe changed the service provider and switched to Salt Edge to gain access to tenants’ bank accounts via Open Banking channels and verify their financial situation. 

Salt Edge Partner Program enables Keysafe to access bank data in a compliant way without the hurdles of getting its own AISP licence. Keysafe can now verify the tenants’ financial situation by connecting to their banks in different countries, including the UK, France, the US, Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and many more. Partner Program incorporates technology for transactions categorisation and merchant identification, enriching the bank data by taking unclear and cluttered transactions and turning them into meaningful insights. With Salt Edge services, the verification process is essentially instant, helping to reduce average response time from 36 hours to approximately 4 minutes. 

Usage of bank data aggregation also increases the approval chances, since Keysafe’s service allows an applicant to select many forms of income for landlords to consider and the financial situation is presented fully, with a 360-degree view. Since the process is digitized and no additional documentation such as bank statements and payslips is required, the verification is smoother and completely nonintrusive for tenants. 

“We’re delighted to be able to partner with Salt Edge. This is a new generation of tenant vetting, made possible by the way that Salt Edge harnesses the technical potential of Open Banking. Retaining our position as the most reliable tenant vetting organisation for Letting Agents and landlords is of paramount importance. This partnership allows us to do just that while at the same time driving the industry forward to provide faster and more accurate results,” commented Gareth Fowler, Managing Director at Keysafe.

“Open Banking is about simplifying access to data to replace obsolete processes with better digital experiences. So making all the finances simpler is the ultimate goal of Salt Edge, and we are very proud that our Partner Program helps people in different sectors, this time – landlords and tenants. More businesses finding their clients, more people finding a home, with Salt Edge guiding the way – this is more than just fulfilling,” said Jason O’Shaughnessy, SVP of Sales at Salt Edge.