Affordability Checks and Assessments

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Putting the individual at the heart of affordability

Assessing an individual’s ability to afford a product or service, both at the point of application and throughout their relationship with you has always been important, but now with our fast-changing environment it has become even more crucial to protect both the consumer and your business. With Experian's Affordability Checks, we make sure you can treat every customer as an individual; helping them meet their needs and goals by better understanding their individual circumstances.

We provide you with quick and easy access to an accurate, personalised view of a customer’s income and expenditure using current account turnover data from our bureau and Open Banking. Applied at point of application or throughout your relationship with a customer, we help you improve customer experience and drive business growth through responsible and compliant decision making.

An affordability assessment to suit your business and your customers

Experian affordability gives you the flexibility to choose the right level of data to suit your business needs, together with detailed analytics to support your decision making.

Using current account turnover data, or bank transaction information from Open Banking in association with credit information, we help you to reach the ‘fastest path to a decision’.

In response to the current Covid-19 crisis we provide additional insight into income shock, employment status, use of overdraft, liquidity and spend characteristics to help you respond to the crisis changes in an individual’s personal finances.

DebtSense

DebtSense allows you to gain a detailed picture of a consumer’s affordability position by bringing together key insights from Open Banking gathered through the Affordability Passport, Experian’s credit bureau and the consumer, captured through easy to use digital tools.

This insight is then passed through an intelligent rules engine to produce personalised outcomes for each consumer whether that be extending their emergency payment break or restarting their payments.

DebtSense streamlines your data collection process by providing a simple and intuitive digital service for consumers and agents, to ensure everyone has the key information needed to make informed decisions.

What is an Affordability Check?

"We want forms to make a reasonable assessment, not just of whether the customer will repay, but also of their ability to repay affordably and without this significantly affecting their wider financial situation. This should minimise the risk of financial distress to customers."*

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Providing value through Experian Affordability Checks

How can affordability be calculated with Experian?

At Experian we have worked to create solutions that meet the immediate needs of today whilst allowing you to build in resilient processes to protect your organisation in the future.

Affordability Passport

Greater visibility of bank transactions in real time, using Open banking for an accurate and current view of Income, Expenditure and Affordability.

CaaS* Transaction data insights

Categorise your own customer’s payment account transactions to quickly assess affordability in your portfolio.

Bureau Insights

New triggers and insights available fortnightly to unpick payment holidays, income changes, current account increase and decreases.

Affordability IQ

Personalised bureau insight that can be used seamlessly to verify a consumers income and to understand their financial well-being.

The Benefits of Experian affordability

With Experian affordability, customers are individuals, not an average

Improve customer experience by removing friction – making sure they complete their application with you rather than switch to a competitor
Deliver personalised solutions to meet their changing expectations and encourage repeat business
Create loyalty by treating customers as individuals and building trust over time as their circumstances change
Increase revenue by being able to help more people/offer more services responsibly
Focus your time and efforts on the most profitable customers, e.g. those with low risk but high demand for your product or service

Further resources to help and support your business

Putting the individual at the heart of affordability

Unlocking affordability – A pivotal tool on the road to pandemic recovery

How to ease pressure on collections

Contact us to speak to one of our experts about our affordability solutions

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^{*PS18/19: Assessing creditworthiness in consumer credit. Policy statement published 30/07/2018}

Experian Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (firm reference number 738097). Experian Ltd is registered in England and Wales (no. 00653331). Registered office: The Sir John Peace Building, Experian Way, NG2 Business Park, Nottingham NG80 1ZZ.