Standard credit checks leave utility providers with an incomplete view of customer reliability. Equiscore provides real-time affordability and payment behaviour data from open banking, so your onboarding decisions are based on evidence, not proxies.
The problem
The core issue is not the credit check itself. It is that credit scores were calibrated for lending decisions and provide a poor signal for the very different question of whether a customer will pay a monthly utility bill.
Credit scoring models are calibrated for lending. They measure propensity to repay borrowed money, not the likelihood of paying a monthly energy or broadband bill reliably.
A customer with no credit history is not the same as one with a poor credit history. Credit-invisible individuals are routinely declined or forced onto prepayment meters that cost them more.
Customers who have recently arrived in the UK have no local credit footprint regardless of their actual financial behaviour. Many have excellent payment histories that simply cannot be seen.
Ofgem's rules on vulnerable customers require providers to treat at-risk customers fairly. Forcing reliable customers onto prepayment meters due to inadequate data is a compliance risk as well as a commercial one.
Market context
7 million+
prepayment meter users in Great Britain
A significant proportion of prepayment meter users are on them not because they have defaulted, but because a credit check returned insufficient data at onboarding. Many pay a higher unit rate as a result.
4 to 5 million
credit-invisible UK adults
Experian estimates that millions of UK adults have limited or no formal credit history. These are potential customers your current process is either declining or placing on more expensive tariffs.
Consumer Duty
FCA requirement since July 2023
The FCA's Consumer Duty requires firms to deliver good outcomes for all customers. Providers who make decisions based on inadequate data face increasing scrutiny over whether those decisions meet the standard.
Figures from Ofgem, Experian and FCA public sources. Used for illustrative purposes.
The opportunity
When you can see actual payment behaviour rather than inferred risk, a range of commercial and regulatory outcomes improve.
Correctly identify customers who can pay by direct debit and would otherwise have been placed on a more expensive prepayment arrangement due to a thin credit file.
New-to-UK customers, young adults and others with thin credit files represent a large, underserved market. Real affordability data lets you serve them without disproportionate risk.
Demonstrating that your onboarding decisions are based on verified affordability evidence strengthens your position under the FCA's Consumer Duty requirements.
Poor data cuts both ways. Customers placed on prepayment meters who could have managed direct debit sometimes switch provider. Accurate data improves retention as well as reducing risk.
Customers who arrived in the UK recently, or who have never held credit products, can demonstrate their reliability through open banking data rather than being excluded by default.
Open banking connections return verified income and spending data in real time. There is no waiting for bank statements to arrive or manual document review.
How Equiscore works
Equiscore supplements your existing onboarding with a verified affordability layer powered by open banking. Customers share their data with explicit consent; you receive structured signals to inform your decision.
Step 1
Equiscore uses open banking to verify a customer's actual income, monthly expenditure and bill payment behaviour. The result is a real-time affordability signal, not a proxy based on historical borrowing.
Step 2
Where utility and bill payments appear in transaction data, Equiscore surfaces them. Customers who pay every bill on time become visible, even if they have never held a credit card.
Step 3
All bank connections are made via FCA-regulated open banking infrastructure. Data is accessed only with the customer's explicit consent and processed under UK GDPR. There is no data scraping.
Step 4
You receive a structured affordability and payment behaviour summary alongside any existing checks. Your team makes a better-informed decision without additional manual review overhead.
Better data. Better decisions. Better outcomes.
We are working with a select group of energy, broadband and water providers ahead of our full launch. Tell us about your onboarding challenge and we will be in touch.