With the power of TrueVision’s trended data, financial institutions can leverage new consumer insights previously unavailable from traditional credit data alone, to optimise growth and better serve consumers.

"Lenders have been looking for improved consumer insights to drive profitable growth and refine their risk management strategies," said Will North, director of core credit for TransUnion UK. "With over 2,000 data attributes and proprietary TrueVision algorithms, incredibly powerful insights emerge to help lenders achieve these results by truly understanding the story behind the consumer’s score.”

Rather than looking at a single snapshot in time of a consumer’s financial standing, TrueVision incorporates up to 72 months of account history - along with actual payment amounts - to provide additional insights into consumer behaviours, looking at payments, balance trends and spending patterns. By creating a more complete view of a borrower’s financial status, TrueVision revolutionises how lenders offer credit to UK consumers and provides consumers with more opportunities.

North continued: “TrueVision is the evolution of TransUnion’s proven trended data strategy, expanding on the model known as ‘CreditVision’ in many other markets, which has already seen success in countries including the United States, Canada, India, Colombia, Hong Kong and South Africa. In India, our risk score showed a 28% increase in approval rate at the same risk when using trended data, and in Canada 27% more consumers have been scored as super prime using this approach.

“In the UK, the potential benefits seem equally impressive, with our pilot studies showing an uplift of up to 15 percentage points against traditional credit scores, measured by the widely-used Gini index, as well as a significant uplift in performance on over 200 lender portfolios. We’re already working with a number of the leading banks, alongside a range of UK lenders, and have seen a really positive response.”

Success stories of businesses using TransUnion’s trended data include a major car finance provider that needed to grow stagnating originations, but could not increase their overall risk profile. Using trended credit insights, they were able to approve many of the applicants they had been turning down - without raising risk levels - and their approval rates for consumers classified as near prime tripled.

At the same time, trended data supports financial inclusion by ensuring consumers are being fully and fairly assessed by lenders. In the US for example, TransUnion’s trended data has meant that 26 million previously unscoreable consumers can now be scored, and upwards of 23 million more consumers are now considered super prime.

Melanie Zimmerman, senior vice president of International Markets at TransUnion, who has helped introduce this trended data innovation in multiple countries added: “Time and again, in markets around the world, we’ve proved that trended data and analytic solutions are a game changer. By providing businesses with new dimensions of credit information through a robust set of credit algorithms that incorporate our global learnings, while embracing the local nuances of the UK market, we’re empowering them to make better decisions that lead to healthier bottom lines and happier customers.

“We’re passionate about providing our clients with the insights and tools to help make every interaction with their customers amazing. Recent research we conducted revealed that 79% of consumers said they would use or consider using a company again if their customer experience was positive. What better way to create a positive customer experience than by being able to say “yes” more often, providing relevant and personalised offers and the best product terms possible. TrueVision enables businesses to do all these things and we’re delighted with the response we’ve seen so far and look forward to partnering with organisations across different industries to embed these insights into their business processes.”