Credit Awareness Week – shining a light on data and technology

Ahead of this year’s Credit Awareness Week, Credit Strategy (CS) had the pleasure of speaking to David Bates (DB), UK&I’s Managing Director of Credit and Verification Services to discuss how data and technology can lead to better outcomes for everyone.

CS: “What impact is the current economic climate having on consumers and businesses?”  

DB: “The headlines this year have certainly been tough which creates uncertainty for both businesses and consumers. From an Experian perspective, we deal in facts and the reality behind the headlines, from an economic perspective, is little more nuanced.  

“There are challenges, such as some of the recent tax changes, which businesses are still responding to and could have a knock-on impact on consumers.   

“What I would say, though, is there is an underlying resilience in the UK economy, and there’s still an opportunity for businesses to grow and be successful. Our Bureau data analysis showed the total business borrowing by SMEs (excluding pandemic relief loans) reached a high of £165bn at the end of the third quarter of 2024. 

“While demand fell slightly in the final three months of the year, it was still significantly up on the same period the year before. This supports the recent GDP news showing the UK economy grew by 0.1% between October and December last year. 

“And at Experian we have a couple of roles to play, one of which is to help businesses find those pockets of opportunity. You find those pockets through having the best data, insight, and capabilities.  

“Our second role is to ensure consumers and small businesses get the best financial outcomes that they can possibly get.”  

CS: What kind of role can data and technology play in supporting businesses?

DB: “A broad, diverse data set will give the biggest set of insights for an individual business, and the more insights a business gets, the more able they are to identify those pockets of opportunities. Importantly, once you identify those pockets of opportunity, you then can personalise the offerings to best fit the consumers.   

“So broad data, and deep insight is really important.  

“As for technology, I see this as an enabler for speed and responsiveness. You can have all the insight in the world, but if you can’t then operationalise them and get that out to your customers quickly then you can’t respond to changes in market conditions and consumer needs.   

“So that combination of broad, rich data and world class technology enables businesses to respond much quicker to market opportunities with more personalised offers.  

“This seems to resonate with businesses too. We commissioned research as part of Credit Awareness Week to see what UK business leaders were feeling about today’s market. What the research found was rising costs (61%) and economic uncertainty are the two biggest concerns and barriers to growth.

“However, to combat these, enhancing the customer experience and personalisation (49%), implementing technology (48%) and establishing robust governance (28%) were the top three priorities for businesses over the next five years.” 

CS: Has the improvement in technology and access to data created opportunities for businesses? Is there more demand for better data in the current economic climate?  

DB: “The appetite for data has certainly gone up over the past few years because those pockets for growth are harder to find, and there are lenders out there who’ve responded incredibly well and have got very good at collecting that data and adapting to it.   

“Therefore, the competition amongst lenders to have the best data set, to be able to do the best personalisation and move in the fastest way has really become key to how our clients succeed in the market.”

CS: A big thing in this space is open banking, and that’s created a lot of opportunities for people. What more education do you think customers need to understand the benefits of open banking?

DB: “Open banking and other consumer contributed data sets are going to enable further expansion of financial inclusion. They build on the core credit bureau data to fill in other parts of the consumer balance sheet.   

“What that means is the credit file gives a clear view of a consumer’s credit performance and open banking adds additional insights into expenditure and spending habits.   

“We also have verified income data, which adds another level of insight. When consumers share these additional data sets, they broaden the visibility of their personal balance sheet which in turn enables them to get better personalised offers from the market.   

“I think your question on education is key as well though, because consumers didn’t want to sign up to open banking early on because they didn’t know what they’d get for sharing this data.

“I think businesses, such as ourselves, can do a better job of explaining the value exchange – i.e., if you share this data, this is how it benefits you. This is a core part of getting consumer contributed data to really take off in the UK and be as transformational as it can be.” 

 
CS: Another big concern at the minute for a lot of businesses is fraud. What role can data play in shoring up businesses’ defences against this issue?

DB: “Fraud is a really challenging but fascinating space, because the speed of innovation from the fraudsters is unrelenting. Therefore, the speed of innovation from fraud prevention players has to match that cadence and rate of innovation – it’s just crucial.  

“Again, the broadest data, really understanding who your customers are, understanding how they behave, so you can spot different behaviours that are not a reflection of who your customer is, is a big part of that.  

“The speed of responsiveness, particularly on the fraud identity side, is also vital. It’s a concerning space when you think about, particularly how AI is now being used to commit fraud.   

“Therefore, businesses in this space need to really be investing, innovating and staying ahead of this challenge because it’s crucial that we all protect our customers, who are often the ones who feel the real pain when these things go wrong.”   

CS: Is promoting financial health and credit awareness still important in 2025?

DB: “It absolutely is. I think there’s a lot of work to do still on building the understanding of how finance credit and debt actually works. I believe it’s a gap in our education system.   

“It’s something the financial services industry can support with, and I think we have to continue to help educate people as to how to look after their financial health in the same way they do their physical and mental health.   

“That’s why campaigns like Credit Awareness Week are so important. It helps people really understand why credit matters and how making the right choice can make a huge difference to a person.” 

CS: What role do you play as a business when it comes to supporting the UK’s wider financial well-being strategy?

DB: “There are various ways we support financial well-being. We, as a business, have a really important role to play in ensuring that our clients have the best, freshest and broadest data set of the highest quality to ensure their customers are getting the best possible outcomes.   

“The Consumer Duty regulation that came in recently has been a very positive thing for the UK market. Our Support Hub is a really good example of the sort of innovation that can support this regulation  

“It’s a free platform that allows consumers to share their support needs with multiple organisations in one simple process. This addresses a real pain point for people with vulnerabilities.   

“The role of innovation is really key when it comes to financial wellbeing. We’re also working hard to innovate around the issue of revolving debt cycles and how we help people consolidate debt in a much more efficient way.   

“We’ve recently announced the integration of ReFi from PayLink Solutions, and we’ve been bringing that into our capabilities to really allow consumers to escape from the affordability restrictions trap.   

“Where we can now help is reducing the risk of double counting, where a consumer’s original debt is considered part of the affordability assessment along with the new loan. This is a really important move as we go forward, and we believe it will help a lot of people get out of the cycle where they are stuck and bring their debt into something that is much more manageable.   

“Lastly, education is also key to driving a financial well-being strategy. We have a team that delivers an ongoing credit-education programme including NHS Money Clinics and our United for Financial Health CSR programme really focuses on driving financial education amongst underserved communities.” 

CS: Will risk managers have to change the way they assess a customer’s credit worthiness? 

DB: “It’s very easy for me to sit here and say more data is good. But if you put more data into the mix, it becomes increasingly hard for credit managers to absorb that information, analyse it, and understand what to do with it.   

“A big part of our technology agenda has been integrating all our products and services into our Ascend Technology Platform, which is really designed to answer the exact question you’re talking about there.   

The platform links together all of our data, analytics and decisioning capabilities across both credit risk and fraud. This allows clients to rapidly assess new data sets, analyse and model changes to lending policies, fraud policies and product configurations, and then push these changes into production. 

“So, while risk managers don’t have to change anything, they now have the opportunity to bring more signals into their analytics when assessing a customer’s credit file. They can also respond to market changes and consumer needs at a speed that has been impossible to imagine previously.

CS: Just finally, what industry trends are you sort of keeping an eye on as we go into the rest of 2025? 

DB: “No interview is complete at the moment without talking about AI and Gen AI. It’s so core to a lot of the conversations we’re having, and things are evolving really fast in the industry.   

“I think understanding where AI and Gen AI can be transformative and positively impacting from a consumer outcome and a regulatory perspective is really key.   

“We’re working hard and investing in this space, but we’re also being cautious at the same time.  

“We’re working closely with the regulators to understand how we can move forward with understanding, decision making and personalisation in a better way, but it’s important it’s also explainable and understandable, and that consumer impact is well thought through.    

“So, we have this balance of speed, but not haste, and I think that’s really important as we’re exploring something like Gen AI.  

“We worked with techUK late last year, and it was estimated that Gen AI could contribute £120bn a year to the UK economy over the next decade. 

“The prize is enormous, but we have to take the steps in the most responsible way, particularly in financial services.”