Multi-bureau - Overview

Smartdecisions

Multi-bureau is an approach to credit decisioning in which the data of more than one credit reference agency is exploited to maximum advantage, to improve credit decisions, resulting in a reduction in bad debt and an increase in the amount of good business taken on.

Jaywing pioneered the use of multi-bureau models in the UK market, using our independence from any of the credit reference agencies and other suppliers to identify the best data sources, which can change by client and portfolio type. The result is highly efficient models which deliver huge return on investment. Today, most organisations have implemented or are considering a multi-bureau approach.

Why multi-bureau?

Improve your profit margins through:

• Unearthing additional adverse credit information
• Reducing the volume of ‘thin file’ rejects
• Improving the accuracy of credit decisions
• Improving fraud detection

overlap of CCJ coverage, UK bureaux

While each credit reference agency has access to broadly similar data, there are fundamental differences in the way that each agency stores and retrieves its data. By exploiting these differences, lenders can identify more high-risk cases, and reduce the number of cases where the applicant cannot be identified. The Venn diagram shows a typical comparison of County Court Judgment coverage across the three bureaux.

The data differences exist in six key areas:

  • The breadth and depth of the data stored by each agency
  • The speed at which the agency becomes aware of a new piece of data, and makes it available online
  • The difference in search algorithms, governing the success with which each agency stores and retrieves data (in particular historical addresses, non-standard addresses, aliases and associates)
  • The analytical intelligence underpinning each bureau’s summary variables
  • The availability and method of address link processing
  • Unique bureau services and products

Our analysis shows the three main bureaux are of similar value and power when used as a single supplier. However, their searches deliver significantly different data, even when the source of data is the same.

So, by combining data from two or more bureaux, you can see significant improvements in results:

  • Over 20% reduction in bad debt when using multi-bureau scores within an application scorecard
  • Over 70% reduction on thin file rejects or referrals
  • 40% more County Court Judgments found
  • 15% more Electoral Roll confirmations
  • 80% more 4+ due accounts found

Jaywing offers multi-bureau services through consultancy, and also our multi-bureau platform, Smartdecisions.

For more information about how Jaywing can help you to develop a multi-bureau approach, please contact us at smartdecisions@weare2020.com.