On of the authorised credit reporting agencies, Experian aims to help potential borrowers understand the benchmark credit score ratings in simpler terms, letting ChatGPT users in UK to access average credit score data for their location or demographic group.
Experian, the tech and data company providing credit report and FICO Score information, has partnered with OpenAI to include its flagship credit score app within ChatGPT for UK consumers.
With the new integration, the popular chatbot users in the UK can avail of a postcode-based credit score comparison. This tool would show credit-applicants-to-be how credit scores vary across locations and age groups.
Credit score is a symbolic number on a set scale designed to represent your credit risk, or the likelihood you will pay your bills on time. Each country may have their own scales and reference indicators. For the UK, the problem is that the country has no single national credit score. Instead, three credit bureaus – Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion each hold their own versions of customer data, so your credit reports can differ slightly across these companies’ data.
Besides, there are currently many efforts by fintechs and banking institutions to modernize the traditional credit scoring practices in line with the modern cash flow fluency. Initiatives like Cash-Flow UltraFICO Score blends FICO’s traditional credit scoring framework with fintech’s real-time, consumer-permissioned cash-flow data (e.g. from checking, savings, and money-market accounts or e-commerce BNPL credit history). Though making the credit score more real, such initiatives might bring more confusion to average citizens as they get even more credit score benchmarks to compare with.
For businesses and individuals, credit score number influences all the aspects of credit decisioning: from loan approvals to interest rates and even potential business partnerships as a result. Therefore, it is so important to understand them. At the same time, many consumers don’t understand what a “good” credit score actually means or how they compare with others, so they don’t know what to strive for and whether they should improve their UK credit score.
In response to customer frustration, OpenAI and Experian partnered to create a tool, using aggregated and anonymised Experian credit score data to show average credit scores by postcode area, average scores by age group, and contextual benchmarks for better financial understanding. To avoid any privacy concerns, the comparison tool itself does not access personal financial information but only uses generalised statistical benchmark datasets.
The goal of the integration is educational and it makes credit scores hit closer to home by allowing people to explore credit topics in their natural language, instead of navigating finance websites with potentially complex terms. The two companies are also targeting a large untapped audience here. Experian notes that 18–34-year-olds make up more than half of ChatGPT users, yet they are among the least likely to check their credit score.
The reasons for the avoidance of credit score checking are different. They may be practical. For instance, Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) and other alternative payment methods allow many purchases happen without traditional credit checks. Therefore, users who mainly rely on BNPL may feel their credit score isn’t relevant to everyday buying. And yet, when it comes to major purchases like vehicles or property, traditional credit score rule. Many Millenials and Gen Z (62%) also get too anxious while checking finances (including credit) and avoid that for psychological reasons.
Besides, younger adults are more likely to have thin or no credit files (due to higher debit usage, fewer loans, frequent gig work, being recent movers to a country or making only early steps in their career), so they don’t see a clear payoff from checking a typically low score that’s driven by information absence. Part of that awareness gap, however, is knowledge gap regarding credit score nature and factors helping building credit trustworthiness, exactly the one OpenAI integration is going to address.
“This launch is only the first step, it’s an important milestone in our strategy to provide secure, intelligent experiences wherever people choose to engage with us, and a significant step in bringing the UK’s most trusted credit score to more people.”
Edu Castro, Managing Director of Experian Consumer Services UK&I
