The Center for Data Innovation spoke with Michael Woodburn, chief data officer of ClearScore, a London-based company, that helps consumers better understand and access financial services by leveraging credit data. Woodburn discussed the importance of understanding their creditworthiness for consumers to make informed financial decisions and how ClearScore uses advanced data techniques to process financial data.
Martin Makaryan: What does ClearScore offer?
Michael Woodburn: ClearScore empowers consumers in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, and Canada by providing them with free access to their financial and credit data and provides valuable analytical insights on the various factors affecting their financial wellbeing. These metrics help lenders assess someone’s creditworthiness, so understanding them before applying for loans or other financial products is key for consumers. We also work with lenders to offer our users deals on credit products.
Makaryan: What is the mission of ClearScore?
Woodburn: Our mission is to give consumers the tools they need to make informed financial decisions by accessing, processing, and analyzing their financial history and related data. We felt that it was unfair for a consumer to have to pay for their own credit report data, so we decided to give consumers access free of charge. Many of us have worked in credit for many years and had heard from people how confusing and stressful they found financial services. We really wanted to concentrate not just on providing users with a visual representation of their credit situation, but helping them feel more empowered and in control.
Makaryan: How does ClearScore provide more personalized financial insights to users?
Woodburn: ClearScore uses lender application programming interfaces (APIs) to evaluate the creditworthiness of consumers and gives them access to product offers they are likely to be approved for. We are also a leader in the open banking space, using natural language processing (NLP) techniques to help categorise a user’s banking transactions, identify income and other factors that help evaluate someone’s risk for lenders more comprehensively. Through our holistic approach, which incorporates open banking data and advanced analytics, we can help provide access to credit and other financial services for individuals who might not qualify based solely on their credit score.
Makaryan: How does ClearScore enable consumers to access insurance services?
Woodburn: ClearScore offers a data-driven app, DriveScore, which helps good drivers access discounts on car insurance and finance. We have partnered with one of the premier data companies in the world, Cambridge Mobile Telematics, to assess how responsibly a user drives, using smartphone telematics. The data analytics on driving behaviors can help users adjust their behavior and also offers the opportunity to access cheaper insurance by rewarding good drivers. We give users the flexibility to choose whether they want to share their score with insurers to get discounts.
Makaryan: How does ClearScore ensure accuracy and precision in the platform?
Woodburn: We invest heavily in understanding our users’ needs across the world and we use those insights to ascertain where we can have the highest impact on financial wellbeing. We take a thoughtful approach to how we can go about leveraging data to help people meet their financial goals. As such, we rely on a high user trust beyond technical and business solutions to maintain an accurate, precise platform that allows users to make data-driven decisions regarding their finances. Our platform pulls in data from different sources, including credit bureaus and directly from banks, allowing us to give our users accurate insights into their creditworthiness and their credit usage.
