Equifax® continues to expand its leadership in alternative data solutions with the introduction of Payment Insights. Developed in partnership with Urjanet, the cloud-based Payment Insights solution promotes greater financial inclusion, regardless of the consumer’s traditional credit score, by empowering consumers to share utility and telecom payment history with banks or lenders when applying for loans and other services.
According to the Federal Reserve, 63 million American adults are either unbanked or underbanked. These individuals may rely on high-cost alternative financial products and services such as check cashing services or pawn shop loans to meet their day-to-day financial needs. Helping more of these consumers obtain access to mainstream financial services and products requires new insights into individual financial history.
Payment Insights makes it easy for consumers to share utility payment history. The cloud-based, API-driven product allows lenders to seamlessly integrate the data into review processes, while meeting industry-leading standards for protection of consumer data security, confidentiality and integrity. Individuals simply provide consent to connect their utility accounts from a lender’s branded experience, and up to 12 months of data is immediately delivered directly from the utility provider to the lender in tradeline format. The report pulls account information, obligation details and payment histories to give lenders a more holistic view of the applicant.
Payment Insights is available now and joins a powerful suite of consumer-permissioned alternative data offerings, including Cashflow Insights, a solution designed to expand access to credit with bank transaction data. Equifax advanced analytic capabilities and differentiated data assets also include The Work Number® database, The Kount Identity Trust Global Network, The Equifax Commercial Financial Network (CFN), DataX, the IXI Network, PayNet and 
Ansonia Credit Data.
Source: PRNEWSWIRE news
