Open Banking permissions platform nabs another major partner

Credit reference agency Equifax has hitched its Open Banking plans to the consents.online permissions platform.

As Open Banking continues to creep forwards, consents.online is assembling an impressive roster of partners.

A few months after agreeing to a landmark deal with HSBC, the Account Information Service Providers (AISP) has announced a similar partnership with Equifax.

Consents.online is a subsidiary of Account Score Holdings Ltd, the parent company of a group of businesses involved in bank transaction analytics. Equifax is already working with AccountScore to deliver enhanced data in real-time to lenders.

Open Banking has been live in the UK since the start of the year, giving third-parties access to the vast reserves of transactional data that has hitherto been the preserve of the biggest banks. But that access is dependent on consent being given by the businesses or consumers to whom the data belongs.

The deal with consents.online will allow Equifax’s business and consumer customers to manage who has access to their data under the Open Banking framework. Those customers may revoke, pause or extend access to any organisation at any time.

Jake Ranson, a banking and financial institution expert and CMO at Equifax, said in a statement: “The vision for Open Banking is to enable people to unlock the power of their data to make the most of their money, giving them more transparency, control, security and access to help. This can be achieved when the extensive data Equifax already holds is harmonised with bank transaction data. Our detailed evaluation identified consents.online as the stand-out candidate to make this a reality, thanks to its long history and deep expertise in working with transaction data globally.”

A recent survey by Equifax pointed to savings prompts as the top motivator for data sharing, finding that 40 per cent of Brits willing to share their bank transaction data with a new lender would do so if that action resulted in product recommendations that would save them money.