We’ve partnered with Equifax and Moneyline to take on financial inclusion
Financial services are still a closed door for millions. Our new partnership will pry it open.
We’re excited to team up with Equifax and Moneyline to make some big moves in automated, inclusive KYC for account openings and lending.
Equifax brings unparalleled credit reference expertise, with deep insights into consumer data and financial behaviour, while Moneyline, a socially responsible lender, focuses on offering fair and affordable lending options to people who are often financially excluded.
Together, we’re the dream team for making financial services more inclusive, effective, and accessible.
This partnership is part of a Consumer Duty innovation challenge led by Fintech Scotland, with a demo day coming up in Glasgow this January (another reason we have to love Scotland!).
Our focus here is on pushing Vouchsafe’s tech further into automation to serve underserved populations—without relying on costly, manual checks. In the UK alone, 11 million people lack adequate photo ID, and 20 million are financially underserved.
Traditional KYC methods just don’t work for them, with failure rates of 20-40% and a heavy reliance on in-person or paper-based verification. And, shockingly, two-thirds of firms are still handling KYC manually.
The cost-of-living crisis only makes things tougher. More people are turning to buy-now-pay-later options that don’t report to mainstream credit bureaus, and with fewer people getting or renewing driver’s licenses and passports, access to photo ID is shrinking.
Vouchsafe was built to remove these barriers, not just for today’s underserved groups but for those facing new challenges.
This Consumer Duty challenge is a great place to start transforming financial inclusion for good.
Vouchsafe & friends news
➡️ We’ll be in Helsinki for Slush on 20 and 21 November. Come and say hi if you’re there!
➡️ Jaye has been up and down the country representing Vouchsafe, and spoke at MALG Conference 2024 in Leeds on 7 November, sharing the stage with Rachel, Moneyline’s CTO.
➡️ We showcased Vouchsafe at the Government Transformation Expo, where Chloe met Andrew Western, the Minister for Transformation from the Department for Work and Pensions
Links of note
🔗 FREOPP published a white paper that details how Americans forgo as much as $140 billion in social welfare benefits in part due to the administrative burdens associated with applying for them.
With more government service moving online, platforms like Vouchsafe that enable more people to prove who they are without traditional identity documents.
🔗 Mark Gannon has a piece for Think Digital about how citizen services are suffering from local authorities’ attempts to save money in the short-term.
We know first hand that the best cure is prevention; the more citizens can access digital services the first time, the better.
🔗 Santander are cutting more than 1,400 jobs as they move towards automating services. We have mixed feelings about this, as the more digitally native firms become, the more they’ll need to rely on tools like Vouchsafe to get people in the door. However, cutting staff is often followed by closing branches, which further limits non-digital ways to access financial services.