Abound partners with D•One to harness open banking data earlier in the lending process, aiming to offer more accurate and accessible credit scores for over 3.5 million users and boost financial fairness.
Abound has teamed up with D•One, the open banking arm of ClearScore Group, in a move aimed at widening access to more affordable credit by using bank data earlier in the lending process. The partnership is designed to help Abound assess whether a borrower is likely to be creditworthy before they even reach its website, allowing the lender to provide more accurate quotes at the start of a search journey.
The arrangement gives Abound access to ClearScore’s open banking-connected user base, which the company says now exceeds 3.5 million people. It also reduces the need for repeat checks later in the application process. According to Open Banking Expo, the lender will use D•One’s connectivity and transaction categorisation tools to judge affordability from the outset, rather than waiting until a full application is under way. D•One says its categorisation services help lenders turn raw transactions into usable indicators of income, spending and risk.
The deal comes amid wider growth for D•One, which says more than 30 lenders now use its service, including Monzo, Capital One, Zopa, Lendable and NewDay. The business has also launched its D•One Risk Score, a model that uses open banking transaction data alone to estimate credit risk on a scale from 0 to 1000, with lower scores indicating higher risk. In a statement carried by Financial IT, Tim Kelleway, managing director at D•One, said Abound was helping lead the way in making lending fairer and more affordable by using open banking intelligence earlier in the process.
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