Revolut has teamed up with Akahu, a New Zealand-based Open Finance provider, to leverage the country’s regulated Open Banking framework for automated credit card underwriting.
With this partnership, Revolut will utilise real-time financial data from applicants obtained via Akahu’s APIs to streamline credit card application processes. This approach aims to replace traditional workflows that rely on manual paperwork and delayed review periods with a more efficient system based on direct consent for sharing financial data, enabling rapid automated decision-making.
Previously, New Zealand’s Open Banking regime was managed through industry-led efforts. The transition to a regulatory framework ensures structural consistency in the model, positioning it as a robust foundation for core banking products beyond account aggregation and personal finance management.
Lending Automation and Data Utilisation
Revolut, with over 70 million customers globally, intends to incorporate data from Akahu into its internal credit risk assessment systems. The goal is to facilitate quicker decision-making and offer a more comprehensive evaluation of an applicant’s financial status by considering income trends and spending patterns instead of solely relying on static documents.
In the credit card sector, which has traditionally required extensive documentation, automation using real-time transaction data could significantly reduce application abandonment rates, particularly in mobile channels where document submission can be more cumbersome.
The application of Open Banking data in daily credit underwriting remains limited across many markets despite ongoing discussions on consumer data portability and competition. The Revolut-Akahu collaboration serves as one of the more tangible examples of how Open Banking infrastructure can be integrated into lending operations, putting New Zealand among a select few markets where this practice is actively being utilised for credit assessment.
Ecosystem Impact
For Akahu, this partnership broadens the scope of its infrastructure by extending it into regulated lending products. It showcases how consent-based data sharing can be effectively operationalized within a structured regulatory framework.
A representative from Revolut highlighted that the integration could better cater to applicants whose financial profiles are not adequately captured by conventional assessment methods, thus sparking a wider debate in the industry over whether richer real-time data might enhance both credit accessibility and lending practices.
The arrangement is expected to be closely observed by other lenders and infrastructure providers within the region as an example of how New Zealand’s regulated Open Banking regime can be practically implemented.
