The Rise of Consumer-Permissioned Data

You may not be familiar with how consumer-permissioned data can help your CRA business, yet. But chances are you, as a consumer, have benefitted from this type of data exchange if you have recently borrowed money from a lender, refinanced a home or filed your taxes using a third-party software provider. Because most Americans are doing a lot of their personal business via the internet with online accounts and apps for banking, education institutions, utility, telecom, and cable services, and more, this means data for these accounts are housed in an easy-to-access place digitally, via a link, with the consumer’s username and password. And it is easy to access for organizations, so long as the consumer grants permission to the organization to access it.

Lenders have been at the forefront of this new trend. That makes sense, since any consumer knows the amount of data required to qualify for a loan. Previously, lenders required a consumer to send copies of this financial data to the lender, which meant the consumer had to download bank statements digitally, for example, or scan a printed copy of the statement and send it in to the lender. Now, lenders are just requesting that consumers give them straight access to the app or online account in question to pull the data needed. This is a much simpler process for both parties involved, and the benefit for the consumer is a higher chance of being approved for the loan, since the lender may take in to account more data than previously required. The lender has the advantage of making it simple for the consumer to do the work involved to get the loan, thereby winning business over other lenders utilizing the old method.

In recent months, consumer reporting agencies are starting to see the benefits of pulling data for employment and education verifications the same way. The benefits include a significant cost savings, quicker turnaround time and more accurate results. By using a third-party vendor, CRAs can allow applicants to grant access to their university accounts, for example, to pull transcripts and degree verification straight from the school database. The same goes for employer payroll data for employment verifications.

It is still early in the game, and CRAs are just starting to experiment with this new process. But any tool to improve turnaround time and accuracy can help retain clients and grow business in this competitive CRA space. So, it may be worth checking out. It is a great way to differentiate your product offerings to end users. Luckily, Accio Data is partnering with four consumer-permissioned data service providers to offer its CRA platform clients access to this new tool. Check out these Accio Data-integrated providers:

• Citadel (employment verifications)
• Validifi (employment verifications)
• MeasureOne (education verifications)
• EmpInfo (employment verifications)

For more information, email sales@acciodata.com, or if you’re a current Accio Data client, contact your account rep to learn more.