Zilch, Experian Partner on Customer Affordability

Zilch, the London-based Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) company, has partnered with Experian, the global information services company, to share reporting of BNPL credit data, the FinTech announced Thursday (April 7).

The partnership with Experian to exchange reporting of payment plan data under the United Kingdom’s Credit Reporting Act (CRA) continues Zilch’s efforts to ensure its customers’ financial health, the FinTech said. The CRA coordinates rules about the supply of goods, services and digital content in the business-to-consumer (B2C) sector.

Zilch said the use of CRA data, open banking information and its proprietary behavioral statistics is expected to provide a complete view of a customer’s creditworthiness.

The partnership with Experian allows Zilch to connect to the comprehensive database to determine how much its 2 million customers can afford.

Zilch’s use of open banking data as well as its own to assess customer affordability promises to strengthen Zilch and Experian’s ability to drive customer value responsibly, the company said.

“This partnership is one of many technology alignments that we are leveraging as we scale to create the most comprehensive view of a customer’s affordability, all while ensuring performance is fed back to partners allowing others in the space to take responsible decisions too,” said Philip Belamant, Zilch co-founder & CEO, in a statement.

Paul Speirs, managing director of digital consumer information at Experian, said by using its affordability technology, Zilch can access insight into a customer’s financial situation and enable them to make more informed lending decisions.

In an interview this PYMNTS earlier this year, Belamant said Zilch has created a BNPL 2.0 product to fill the gaps created by traditional credit cards and the first-generation BNPL products.

Read more: Zilch CEO on Why BNPL Needs a Revamp

“With our product, customers [can] make debit transactions and earn value and cashback and rewards, and then take that value and use it to discount larger transactions which they may want to defer over time for absolutely free, no interest of any kind,” he said.