Plaid and MoneyLion Team to Give Lenders Cash Flow Underwriting Insights

Digital financial ecosystem MoneyLion adopted a new solution from Plaid that allows consumers to link their bank accounts and get pre-qualified for loans.

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    When consumers share this information, lenders gain cash flow underwriting insights that enable them to offer credit options that are tailored to the consumer and are more competitive, Plaid said in a Monday (Oct. 7) blog post.

    “This collaboration enhances the overall borrowing experience and, expanding financial access for underserved consumers, ensures more people can access the financial products that best meet their needs,” MoneyLion Chief Product Officer Tim Hong said in the post.

    The solution from Plaid that powers these new capabilities is a combination of its instant financial onboarding platform called Layer and its cash flow data solution called Consumer Report, according to the post.

    By making it easy for lenders to evaluate cash flow data alongside traditional credit data, this combination delivers a more holistic picture of applicants’ financial situation and enables more confident lending decisions, the post said.

    MoneyLion is the first customer to take advantage of this new solution, having added it to its Engine marketplace platform for enterprise partners that matches consumers with personalized financial solutions, per the post.

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    “We’re excited to work with MoneyLion to reshape loan marketplaces, improving the experience for both consumers and lenders,” Alain Meier, head of identity at Plaid, said in the post. “For consumers, this means more control over their financial outcomes and the ability to showcase their full financial picture to lenders. For lenders, this means more informed decision-making and more opportunities to approve qualified borrowers who might otherwise have been overlooked.”

    MoneyLion pivoted from a neobank to what is essentially a consumer and business financial services portal and shopping mall, MoneyLion CEO Dee Choubey told PYMNTS in an interview posted in August.

    “We’re now building these web tools for any CMO that runs a financial institution, a bank, a lender … to actually think of MoneyLion as a channel,” Choubey said. “Just like they think of Google SEO as a channel.”

    The company’s teams are optimizing bidding strategies and audience building on MoneyLion’s channel, Choubey added.