New solution provides financial applications with access to alternative data sources accessing millions of underbanked consumers.
ATLANTA, October 22, 2021 – Urjanet, the global leader in utility data aggregation, today announced a new solution enabling financial services and fintech providers to uncover new revenue opportunities with access to alternative data. The industry-first solution leverages machine learning technology to provide on-demand, user-permissioned access to proof of identity and address, as well as utility payment history. With Urjanet’s unique model of data access, fintechs and lenders can shed light on nearly 50 million underbanked consumers and keep customers in control of their own data.
Since its inception, the company has automated and streamlined more than $150 billion in utility spend globally. Urjanet’s platform is the only solution of its kind poised to close the gap in reliable, secure alternative data access on demand and at scale.
“Urjanet is committed to investing in new partnership opportunities and new ways to transform the use of utility data,” said Urjanet CEO Sanjoy Malik. “With the latest expansion of our platform, we are excited to empower financial services and fintech application providers large and small to optimize conversions, drive new revenue growth, and deter fraud. We believe the developer resources will provide financial application developers the power to experiment with utility and user data to achieve a number of business goals.”
Nearly 50 million thin- or no-file consumers and small businesses in the U.S. are unable to access the credit they need through traditional risk models. Alternative data has revealed a substantial portion of this credit invisible population to be qualified applicants. According to a FICO study on incorporating alternative data, more than one-third of newly scorable consumers would have scores of 620 or above. Yet what risk models lack is a reliable method of accessing this alternative data. With up to 12 months of utility bill payment history available on demand through Urjanet’s intelligent data platform, alternative lenders can now gain deeper visibility into declined applicants, advance their risk models, and ultimately expand financial inclusion for millions of consumers.
“The Urjanet sandbox makes things a lot easier for our development and QA teams,” said Hani AbuGhazaleh, Chief Experience Officer of LevelCredit. “Having a wide range of real-world data request scenarios allows us to thoroughly test our integration. This provides assurance that our systems are able to handle all situations and our applications are able to communicate well with our users. The ability to fully experience the various workflows from end-to-end is critical to the success of any consumer-facing application.”
To get started with Urjanet’s developer portal and new sandbox, we invite application developers to view our documentation. The Urjanet staff will be available for questions in booth #1640 at the 2021 Money20/20 Conference, October 25-27, 2021, in Las Vegas, NV.
About Urjanet
Urjanet is the world’s leading utility data aggregator, delivering data from more than 9,000 utility, telecom, and cable providers across 48 countries. Utility data solves global challenges, ESG reporting for accountable climate action to credit risk assessment for the underbanked and identity verification for fraud prevention. Urjanet’s cloud-based platform and powerful suite of APIs provide a secure and scalable way for businesses of all kinds to access consumer-permissioned data. To learn more, visit urjanet.com.