The benefits of Open Banking, and the power of Worldline’s Credit Insight Solution

Worldline's Credit Insight Solution is at the tip of the spear, connecting banks, businesses and consumers across Europe. As part of the Future Digital Awards for Fintech & Payments 2023, Juniper Research awarded the Worldline Credit Insight Solution gold in the Open Banking innovation category, recognising its industry significance, myriad benefits and broad range of applications for the modern financial landscape.

We sat down with Gavin Copeland, Product Manager Open Banking at Worldline, to discuss what makes Worldline's Credit Insight Solution stand out, and the broader impact of open banking in a rapidly changing payments landscape.

Open Banking solutions for a data-driven world

The modern world is dominated by data. From entertainment and retail to marketing, sales or technology, data drives customer journeys, business strategies and product development. The payments and financial world is no different. Data plays an increasingly important role in how people bank, choose providers and services, and spend their money. Alongside the increased availability of customer data, comes an increased awareness of the importance of this data.

Security and strict regulation are crucial when considering customer data use. It is, in fact, due to the introduction of data regulation that Open Banking has developed. "The principle behind the regulation was that as a bank account holder, you should have full control of your bank accounts and the data associated with those accounts," indicates Gavin . "Banks shouldn't be able to ring-fence the data they have on their systems."

The result is that with consumers' express permission, their data can be used to drastically optimise processes such as credit checks, fraud detection or payment approvals. In essence,  Open Banking unlocks opportunities to enhance and streamline the customer journey while achieving cost savings and bolstering financial security.

Worldline's Credit Insight Solution

Worldline's Credit Insight Solution uses Open Banking and customer data to deliver faster and more efficient credit checking. It removes the need to manually verify documents such as PDF bank statements, providing huge resource savings across the verification process. Instead, Credit Insight ingests all of the transaction history. It immediately creates a credit score, providing a predictive analysis based on account health, transaction and purchase history, and identifiable trends.

"It's a predictive metric for how likely the customer is to default on a loan that's granted," says Gavin. "It also provides warnings. For instance, is this person already paying off other loans? Do they have payment failures, or do they gamble excessively?" The process, integrated into lender and merchant services such as web shops and finance agreements via a simple API, can return results in seconds, providing customers with a fast and streamlined approval process.

"Also significant is that it uses data directly from the bank," continues Gavin. "It cannot be modified or changed in any way. This makes credit fraud much more unlikely." Indeed, security and accuracy are ever more important in the data-driven age. To this end, Worldline covers the whole value chain and alongside Credit Insight, also offers strong authentication services, onboarding, KYC and e-signature.

A European powerhouse

Worldline boasts one of Europe's largest Open Banking networks, connecting 3,500+ banks in 22 countries. This enables lenders to gather data across borders and facilitate international credit checks quickly. Customers can enjoy better interest rates and benefit from informed credit limits. "The ability for, say, a French lender to access an individual's data from another European country during a loan application in France, really makes Worldline, and this credit solution, one of the biggest players in Europe," says Gavin.

Worldline's solution is also deceptively simple. It combines multiple services in one API, making integration easy. As services and products evolve and the market expands, navigating complexity is a concern for many banks and merchants. "Data can complicate, but also simplify," says Gavin. "For instance, through a single API connection, you can connect to 3,500+ banks, and access best-in-class credit analysis without the need for any integration other than connecting to the one API."

Increased efficiency and an enhanced customer experience

The limit of Open Banking has yet to be tested, with future regulatory developments expected to broaden the scope for the use of data within finance. The immediate benefits, however, are clear. A Worldline partner study found that customers using Open Banking credit checking have been able to increase their acceptance rates by up to 40% and decrease their defaults by up to 50%. Additionally, a Gini coefficient of up to 80% can be achieved - a measure that indicates how accurate a system is at predicting defaults.

Modern customers hate waiting and love seamless journeys. Being able to give them quicker decisions and deeper, more personalised experiences leads to better customer experience and ultimately, loyalty. By harnessing the power of Open Banking, Worldline improves customer acceptance rates and enables lenders to seamlessly turn away fewer reliable prospects. In a highly competitive market, keeping your finger on the pulse of what's coming next is essential for long-term sustained success. Open banking means you're open to growth, innovation, and a customer-centric landscape - only time will tell where it can lead us.

Learn more about Worldline Credit Insight.