Equifax Australia and Mastercard have formed a strategic partnership to merge Equifax’s advanced analytics with Mastercard’s Open Finance solutions.

Introducing Innovative Financial Products

This collaboration aims to introduce new, sophisticated financial products to the Australian market. The partnership focuses on leveraging data and analytical tools to enhance customer experiences and services.

Enhancing Financial Inclusion in Australia

The initial launch of Equifax Open Score is a key component of this strategic alliance. This tool, jointly created by Equifax and utilizing Mastercard’s global Open Finance network, targets over 2.5 million consumers who may have limited or no credit history, including young individuals, new migrants, and those re-entering the credit market.

By providing a transaction score based on consumer-consented bank data through the Consumer Data Right (CDR), Open Score helps these often-overlooked groups understand their financial position better. This aids in achieving long-term financial well-being while promoting financial inclusion.

The score, ranging from 0 to 10, is generated by analyzing real-time transaction data, offering insights into a consumer’s financial health along with factors that influence the score. Open Score also delivers additional functionalities:

• Making credit invisible consumers visible to lenders and financial services providers.
• Providing transaction alerts that highlight key behaviors in user data, allowing customers to monitor their expenses and identify any unusual or potentially fraudulent transactions.
• Including a Confidence Metric to show the reliability of the score as an indicator of a consumer’s financial well-being.
• Offering insights into a consumer’s income, expenses, and spending patterns through banking transaction data analysis.

Equipped with Mastercard’s accredited Open Finance platform, Open Score ensures that consumers’ banking data is shared securely across the network. This collaboration is built on the principle of consent by design, giving consumers full control over their data sharing and ensuring secure real-time transactions with their permission.