Experian Boost™ Wins Consumer Lending Innovation Award in Prestigious Fintech Competition

by Brittany Peterson 3 min read March 12, 2020

There are more than 100 million people in the United States who don’t have a fair chance at access to credit. These people are forced to rely on high-interest credit cards and loans for things most of us take for granted, like financing a family car or getting an apartment. At Experian, we have a fundamental mission to be a champion for the consumer.

Our commitment to increasing financial inclusion and helping consumers gain access to the financial services they need is one of the reasons we have been selected as a Fintech Breakthrough Award winner for the third consecutive year.

The Fintech Breakthrough Awards is the premier awards program founded to recognize the fintech innovators, leaders and visionaries from around the world. The 2020 Fintech Breakthrough Award program attracted more than 3,750 nominations from across the globe.

Last year, Experian took home the award for Best Overall Analytics Platform for our Ascend Analytical Sandbox™, a first-to-market analytics environment that promised to move companies beyond just business intelligence and data visualization to data insights and answers they could use.

The year prior, Experian won the Consumer Lending Innovation Award for our Text for Credit™ solution, a powerful tool for providing consumers the convenience to securely bypass the standard-length ‘pen & paper’ or keystroke intensive credit application process while helping lenders make smart, fraud protected lending decisions.

This year, we are excited to announce that Experian has been selected once again as a winner in the Consumer Lending Innovation category for Experian Boost™.

Experian Boost – with direct, active consumer consent – scans eligible accounts for ‘boostable’ positive payment data (e.g., utility and telecom payments) and provides the means for consumers to add that data to their Experian credit reports. Now, for the very first time, millions of consumers benefit from payments they’ve been making for years but were never reflected on their credit reports.

Since launching in March 2019, cumulatively, more than 18 million points have been added to FICO® Scores via Experian Boost. Two-thirds of consumers who completed the Experian Boost process increased their FICO Score and among these, the average score increase has been more than 13 points, and 12% have moved up in credit score category.

“Like many fintechs, our goal is to help more consumers gain access to the financial services they need,” said Alex Lintner, Group President of Experian Consumer Information Services. “Experian Boost is an example of our mission brought to life. It is the first and only service to truly put consumers in control of their credit. We’re proud of this recognition from Fintech Breakthrough and the momentum we’ve seen with Experian Boost to date.”

Contributing consumer payment history to an Experian credit file allows fintech lenders to make more informed decisions when examining prospective borrowers. Only positive payment histories are aggregated through the platform and consumers can remove the new data at any time. There is no limit to how many times one can use Experian Boost to contribute new data.

For more information, visit Experian.com/Boost.

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One Platform, Fewer Handoffs, Faster Decisions

The average credit union manages between 100-300 vendor relationships, and nearly a third have no dedicated staff managing them. What was supposed to drive efficiency is stunting growth and compromising the member experience. Application volume is continuing to rise, and consumers expect a loan decision at digital speed. But for credit unions, meeting that expectation isn't the only goal. They must also continue to make the right lending decisions while also prioritizing risk management. The institutions pulling ahead aren't the ones with the most tools. They're the ones that have turned credit, fraud and decisioning into a single, coordinated system. A single loan decision touches: Credit data Identity verification Fraud signals Decisioning logic Reporting Rarely does all of that live in one place. More often, it’s stitched together across separate platforms, each with its own contract and its own support line. When a credit view and a fraud view are generated separately, they must be reconciled instead of read together in the same instant. Every handoff is a place where a decision slows down and a signal gets missed. It's why a fraud pattern that would be obvious next to the credit file often surfaces only after the funds are already gone. Fragmentation also makes it harder to optimize lending strategies over time. When data, analytics and decisioning are disconnected, credit unions have less visibility into what's working, what's changing and where strategies need to be adjusted. An integrated decisioning ecosystem closes those seams by design, with credit, fraud and lending strategy running on one platform and accessed through a single Application Programming Interface (API). Identity and compliance capabilities can be an integrated decisioning flow. The data doesn't need to be reconciled after the fact because it was never separated in the first place. Stop overengineering, start removing friction When decisioning underperforms, the instinct is to build something more custom: a proprietary model, tighter segmentation, more configuration.  Custom modeling has its place for institutions with the scale and data to justify it. But often, for small or mid-sized credit unions, the bigger opportunity is a flexible decisioning strategy that uses a strong, continuously refreshed model. This shouldn't be either/or. The right approach gives credit unions a strong decisioning strategy today, with the ability to introduce more customized analytics and modeling as their needs evolve.  The same principle applies to strategy management: credit unions can gain greater control through self-service capabilities as they build a more sophisticated data science team.   That kind of flexibility is important as credit unions modernize their decisioning infrastructure. Research surveying more than 2,000 senior credit risk and fraud decision-makers across 11 countries found that organizations investing in unified platforms and modern infrastructure are moving faster and realizing the greatest Return on Investment (ROI).   As their needs evolve, credit unions can adjust decisioning strategies without introducing another layer of technology or relying on third parties to make every change. Until self-service is the right fit, choose a partner that understands what makes your credit union’s membership and risk appetite different from others.  Same member, same afternoon, faster answer Consider a credit union growing its auto and personal loan originations.  A member applies for an auto loan on Saturday afternoon. Credit data, identity and fraud signals are read together in a single real-time pass instead of separate reviews:  Most applications resolve immediately, approved or declined based on a more comprehensive view of the applicant. A smaller number are flagged for quick step-up verification and cleared within minutes. Only genuinely ambiguous cases reach an underwriter, who is working from one complete picture instead of reconciling multiple signals. The member has an answer before the weekend is over. The credit union books the loan before competitors even open on Monday. Built to scale This kind of process holds up today. However, the better test is whether it holds up eighteen months from now when application volume has grown, new products are live and the data flowing through the system looks nothing like it does right now. Future-proofing isn't only about handling more volume. It's about having room to be nimbler and make adjustments as quickly as the market changes. A credit union that relies on standard models within a decisioning strategy may want more customized analytics and greater control over its strategies tomorrow. Connect with us With more than three decades of credit expertise and one of the industry's largest data footprints, Experian helps credit unions do more than solve this year's friction. We're helping to build a decisioning foundation that scales, so growth becomes something the system absorbs, rather than something it must be rebuilt around. Explore More

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