New Zealand's biggest bank, ANZ NZ will utilise Open Banking technology from the UK's Bud to improve the loan approval process for business customers.
The deal, which marks the beginning of a strategic push by Bud in the Australia and New Zealand markets, will empower ANZ NZ with the capability to ingest and categorise data from prospective borrowers’ bank statements in a bid to streamline the lending process and increase transparency.
The initiative has been spurred by new regulations in New Zealand under the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act that requires lenders to capture and verify borrowers’ income and expenses in detail in affordability assessments.
ANZ NZ says it will use Bud’s software to enrich statement data uploaded by borrowers, identifying and categorising income and expenses, and returning a summary to the bank for use in its affordability assessments.
Ed Maslaveckas, Bud’s CEO comments: “We’ve seen Open Banking start to have a significant impact on the credit market in the UK. We’ve invested heavily in our intelligence capabilities over the last year, developing the granularity and accuracy that institutions need to shape these journeys and developing tools that allow us to quickly port that performance level to new markets."
ANZ was one of a collective of big banks that joined in a $20 million funding round for Bud in February 2019.