Equifax UK Partners With Digilytics AI to Reduce Time to Offer by 30% For Mortgage Applications

Equifax UK has announced today that its Open Banking technology will be the catalyst for a new partnership with Digilytics AI. Together, the two companies are launching new software which will help lenders to reduce decisioning time so that end users can get responses to mortgage, auto and business loan applications more quickly. 

Open Banking technology from Equifax, combined with Digilytics AI’s engine, should make loan applications faster and easier by automating the origination process, allowing lenders to quickly and accurately assess affordability and cash flow data. 

Consumers and businesses choosing to allow access to their banking apps and digital financial records can leverage Open Banking for a simple and quick submission via a mobile app as part of a streamlined user experience. 

Equifax clients will also have access to Digilytics RevEl Intelligent Affordability Service (RIA) to help businesses automate data capture when borrowers supply copies of bank statements and other documentation as part of the same experience. This can be launched from existing portals and loan origination systems with digital document upload for guaranteed extraction of data.  

The adoption of Open Banking is growing fast in the financial services sector, and this is no different in the mortgage, auto and business lending market. There are now a reported 6.5 million¹ Open Banking users across the UK and Equifax lender data shows that 75% of applicants are now more likely to choose Open Banking over more traditional, and more manual, methods to share additional data for affordability.  

The partnrship between Equifax and Digilytics AI can help automate data capture and processing when interacting with the other 25% of applicants who choose not to or are unable to give lenders Open Banking permissions.

Equifax clients can use Digilytics AI technology to automatically scan bank statements provided by consumers who opt-out of Open Banking and turn these into actionable bank transaction data insights delivered via Equifax APIs.  

Lenders who currently use this technology report up to:  

• 30% reduction in time to offer; 
• 40% increase in productivity; 
• 15% increase in gross lending, as consumer lending journeys can be fast-tracked whether a consumer chooses to use Open Banking or not.  

Mike Coley, Product Director at Equifax UK said: “The typical process in the secured lending industry requires significant manual processing of documents with multiple resubmissions, especially when data is not available via the Open Banking route. Digilytics capabilities complement our Open Banking solutions to provide a comprehensive proposition that is agnostic to the way borrowers choose to share data. We already work with a number of mortgage and secured lending clients to help them use Open Banking. This partnership allows them to invest in a single capability to access and assess a borrower’s affordability position, regardless of how the data is shared.” 

Arindom Basu, Founder and CEO at Digilytics AI said: “This collaboration with Equifax will help tackle borrower journeys where Open Banking consent is not available. The AI technology will make categorised and accurate bank statement affordability or cash flow information collected from uploaded documents available via the Equifax dashboard or through Open Banking APIs. 

“This ensures that the consumer, auto-finance, and business-finance lending journeys are streamlined, as lending decisions can be fast-tracked whether they choose to opt into Open Banking or not. This is a very exciting time in the lending and AI space, and we’re extending this capability to other documents such as payslips, tax and business financial documents. We’re proud to be collaborating with Equifax to be launching this new software product.”