The power of consumer-permissioned data in lending

The lending landscape is more competitive than ever before. With more and more consumers working in the gig economy, juggling more nuanced finances, and generally living in a complex economy,  lenders need to be able to look beyond the book of standard lending requirements to 1. expand access to more consumers and 2. meet consumers where they are to stay competitive.

Consumer-permissioned data (CPD) is a technology rising in popularity to do just that—to enable lenders to connect to consented consumer accounts to access the data they need to make better decisions for their consumers and close more loans. 

MeasureOne sits down with GDS Link

MeasureOne’s CEO, Elan Amir, sat down with Rich Alterman, host of decisioning-platform GDS Link’s Lending Link podcast to talk about the many use-cases of consumer-permissioned data, its benefits for consumers and lenders alike, and MeasureOne’s evolving and adaptable consumer-permissioned data platform.  

The vision of MeasureOne’s consumer-permissioned data platform

For MeasureOne, using consumer-permissioned data started in education, where there were no competitors.  There are complexities of education data compared to income or employment data, as it involves various types of information such as transcripts, grades, credits, and courses, which are highly individualized and not standardized. To address these challenges, the focus for MeasureOne remained on solving intricate data and architectural issues.

While developing the workflows to capture educational data, Me realized the importance of creating an overarching solution that could be extended beyond the education sector. They aimed to design for future opportunities rather than just immediate needs. As they progressed, they identified potential applications for their technology in other data domains.

“Consumer-permissioned data is the term of art, albeit maybe a mouthful, for any data that is shared by a consumer with a requesting party. That requesting party could be a university; it could be an employer; it could be a lender; it could be an insurance provider; it could be a healthcare provider; it could be an accountant,” Elan explains. “MeasureOne facilitates the direct engagement between the requesting party and the consumer and gets explicit consent from the consumer to share the data on behalf of the consumer with the requesting party.”

Today, MeasureOne serves as a consumer-permissioned data platform, allowing them to expand into different markets beyond education, including lending and insurance. 

Elan continues, “We're not alone in this space, but we certainly are leaders in building out this workflow in various different industries.”

The industry-leading CPD platform for lenders

Lenders, credit unions, and financial services have a significant need for data to offer loans and financial products to consumers. MeasureOne provides access to various types of data, including income, employment, education, and insurance data to provide a holistic understanding of the consumer profile. These datasets can be used by lenders to underwrite loans and better facilitate services for consumers.

The value of consumer data obtained via CPD is paramount, providing real-time, fraud-proof data that isn’t publicly available. Its access enables lenders to improve their underwriting processes and enhance their ability to serve more consumers effectively. And MeasureOne is excited to offer this credentialed data to this crucial market. 

Automating processes and expanding borrower access

The best part of consumer-permissioned data for lenders? It keeps the borrower in the funnel. “What used to be the lengthy process of the consumer leaving the funnel, going into their accounts, collecting the documents, uploading them, and then, operationally, the documents then needing to be either entered or digested into a decision engine, [the lender or decisioning platform], for the purposes of ultimately either underwriting or originating the loan—that entire process now is automated,” Elan explains. 

With MeasureOne, the lender keeps the consumer in the funnel so that all the necessary documents, and, more specifically, the data in those documents, are digitally acquired and delivered into the decision engine, reducing the time, energy, and cost of what used to be the number one friction point to a real-time transaction—document processing. 

Lenders and consumers alike must embrace the digital age

While lenders may be hesitant to embrace CPD as a data-collecting and verifying technology, consumers are already familiar with and taking advantage of the technology through services like PayPal or Venmo when they connect their bank accounts or on their tax accounts and mortgage applications when they upload documents. In fact, around 80% of consumers are willing to share their data with MeasureOne and the requesting lender. Consumer-permissioned data ultimately relies on accessing data available in online accounts, and most users are open to this type of data exchange. 

“That is the nature of consumer-permissioned data. We have to access that data that the consumer owns for the purposes of data sharing,” says Elan. He goes on,  “In the event, the data is not available online, which could be for a variety of reasons. Either the data is sitting somewhere that isn't online (maybe payroll data is not online; maybe employment data isn't online; maybe the insurance policy isn't online; the academic record isn't online, etc)...then of course we can't access it directly. [However], we have addressed that also in our product by enabling the data to be uploaded manually and processed in the platform.”

Ultimately, embracing the technology that is CPD, especially through MeasureOne, facilitates smoother and more efficient data sharing, benefiting both consumers and companies in their various financial and lending activities.

Where MeasureOne makes a difference

Rather than focusing solely on specific data domains, as other CPD platforms may do, MeasureOne built an infrastructure that allows the integration of consumer-permissioned data into any business's workflows. “We took a different approach and thought that, obviously, these individual domains are interesting for the requesting parties and the customers that need that data, but data is data,” says Elan. 

He continues, “Anybody could build a system to do this at small scale, but to do this at, at the scale that we're doing it, with essentially unlimited scalability in data sources, data types, document types, and data domains, requires an underlying infrastructure that essentially 'templatizes' and understands all these different data types, in a way that doesn't presume any single data type but instead looks at all data equally. For us, a pay stub, an insurance policy, or an academic transcript are equivalent concepts in our infrastructure…That's where we distinguish ourselves.”

This platform approach sets MeasureOne apart from others, and through comprehensive and complex development, the product is designed to be scalable and adaptable, accommodating any data that consumers are willing to share to receive products or services from requesting parties. For lenders, this means that MeasureOne provides a one-stop-shop for their borrower data. And now is the time to embrace it:

“There's no question that being aware of the automation opportunities,  whether or not it's in financial services, and being aware of the improvements and efficiencies that these new technologies bring will be core to any of these industries.” concludes Elan. As for advancements from MeasureOne, he says, “Be ready for these developments. We've got these wonderful new tools coming online.”

See where your lending opportunity lies with MeasureOne

With automated workflows and data directly from the consumer (and at a lower cost all around), the decision to take advantage of consumer-permissioned data is simple. So why not use the industry-leading CPD platform, MeasureOne?

For lenders, credit unions, and any business looking to embrace innovation and improve their conversions, MeasureOne offers:

• One-month, no risk free trial (and 90%+ cost-savings after the trial ends)
• Low cost, automated verification of income, employment, insurance, and more
• Data straight from primary sources (e.g. Payroll systems) ensuring fraud protection and up-to-the-minute accuracy
• 100% market coverage (over 5,000 supported payroll systems) driving industry leading conversion rates

From income to employment to insurance verification, MeasureOne brings secure, transparent data to the table for the benefit of credit unions and their consumers.

Let MeasureOne help streamline your lending operations and continue driving consumer confidence.