Worldline partners with Algoan to offer credit assessment solution

By Leandra Monteiro

Worldline, a global leader in payment services, and Algoan, a credit scoring provider announced a collaboration agreement to jointly develop a next-level credit assessment solution to help lenders and services providers make better credit decisions. This service is based on APIs & machine learning, making use of open banking transaction data.

Within the secure and user-consent driven framework of PSD2, credit institutions, borrowers and merchants all have the opportunity to embrace a faster, fairer, data-driven credit assessment approach which has clear benefits for all parties. Worldline and Algoan are dedicated to making these opportunities readily available to the market.

Traditional credit assessment practises across Europe involve varying degrees of manual processes and assessments, which are subject to human error and cost both lender and borrower a lot of time to process a credit application. Following the fundamental changes in the financial services industry, the task of assessing potential borrowers is becoming more and more difficult with traditional assessment methods no longer meeting consumer expectations and not keeping pace with digital transformation or regulatory changes. The credit & risk assessment process has a lot to gain from PSD2 opportunities, as Open Banking and Open Finance continue to provide better and faster services to consumers and institutions.

Unleashing the power of Open Banking

The partnership will combine Worldline’s pan-European Open Banking reach and expertise in digital banking, combined with Algoan’s credit scoring expertise that uses best-in-class machine learning algorithms, therefore offering a new Open Banking-based credit-assessment tool. This will enable banks, credit institutions, lending companies and service providers to take credit scoring to the next level, resulting in more accurate scoring, access to better data and improved processing efficiency. This innovation can be valuable for many use cases, such as Personal Finance & Consumer Lending, Auto Finance & Leasing, Retail Lending & BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later), Insurance and Utility Providers.

Benefits for both lenders and borrowers

Open Banking-based credit assessment brings significant advantages to both lenders and borrowers. As the lender receives data from the bank, the data validity is ensured which will reduce the risk of fraud. Based on a more accurate assessment, applicants can be accepted who may otherwise have been declined. With access to consumer account data, based on user consent, lenders quickly get a better view of the actual financial situation of consumers and can meet the borrower’s needs without risking over-indebtedness. In addition, the lender can provide a fast, straightforward customer journey while the borrower receives a fair credit assessment and a faster time-to-yes.

At the heart of this new credit assessment tool is Worldline’s Open Banking API, which provides access to more than 3,500 banks in 19 countries across Europe. Worldline is one of the largest Open Banking providers in Europe.

Michael Steinbach, Managing Director Financial Services at Worldline said, “At Worldline we look for innovative partners who share our vision and enable us to enrich and expand our open banking services. As a lead er in payment services and one of the largest Open Banking providers in Europe, we are committed to unlocking the full potential of Open Banking. With Algoan, we will be able to offer our customers an end-to-end , fast and cost-efficient white-label solution to assess credit worthiness”.

Michael Diguet, CEO at Algoan said, “Open Banking credit scoring is experiencing momentum that big players should embrace. We are delighted to collaborate with a global leader like Worldline and to power them with our best-in-class global credit scoring API. This new collaboration marks a further milestone in Algoan’s international growth. We look forward to jointly revolutionising the credit industry by exploiting Worldline’s Open Banking capabilities.