A New Credit Score: Smoke and Mirrors?
Experian's latest offering, the "Credit + Cashflow Score," promises a more nuanced view of consumer creditworthiness. The model, launched November 10, 2025, blends traditional credit data with consumer-permissioned bank account information. We're talking income, balances, card payments, the works. It even throws in trended data, giving a 24-month rearview mirror of credit management. On the surface, it's an attempt to paint a fuller picture, especially for those with thin or nonexistent credit files.
The pitch is compelling: tap into bank data to identify responsible borrowers who might be overlooked by traditional scoring methods. Experian claims to be pulling data on over 220 million U.S. consumers and incorporating Clarity Services data, which covers tens of millions using nontraditional financial services. Vijay Mehta, Experian's EVP, even talked about the role of AI in making transactions trustworthy. Sounds good, right?
But let's dig a little deeper. This model hinges on "consumer-permissioned" data. Translation: you have to give Experian access to your bank account. That's where the red flags start waving. How many people are going to be comfortable handing over that level of financial intimacy? And what kind of borrower is most likely to do so? Desperate ones. The ones who need that credit score bump to get approved.
Thought Leap: How is this data collected? Is it truly anonymized and aggregated, or could individual spending patterns be reverse-engineered? What are the data security protocols? Details on these critical points are conspicuously absent.
The Devil's in the Data
A PYMNTS Intelligence report highlighted that almost two-thirds of consumers don't understand how credit limit increases are decided. And one-third felt unfairly treated by credit limit decisions in the last three years – that number jumps to nearly 60% among subprime borrowers. Experian is ostensibly trying to address this opacity, but is this new score a real solution or just a black box with a fresh coat of paint?
The 24-month trended data is interesting, but it’s not groundbreaking. Most lenders already consider payment history. What’s new is the inclusion of banking transactions. The question becomes, how heavily weighted are things like overdraft fees or small-dollar loan transactions? Are we simply penalizing the poor for being poor?
And this is the part of the report that I find genuinely puzzling. The model uses "detailed credit account information." Okay. But it also uses data from Clarity Services to cover "tens of millions of consumers using nontraditional financial services." Why is this separated? Nontraditional financial services are credit products (payday loans, rent-to-own). Why not just say "all credit accounts?" This discrepancy raises questions about how these different data sources are weighted and integrated (or not).
The real concern is that this "Credit + Cashflow Score" could create a two-tiered system. Those with pristine credit and the financial savvy to avoid alternative financial services won't need it. It's the subprime borrower – already vulnerable – who is most likely to be lured into handing over their banking data for a chance at a better score. And what happens when that data reveals a pattern of financial instability? Does the score go down?
A Shiny New Trap?
Experian is selling this as a tool for financial inclusion. But I suspect it's a tool for extracting more data from vulnerable consumers, repackaging it, and selling it back to lenders. The promise of a more accurate credit score is tempting, but the potential for exploitation is undeniable. Until Experian provides more transparency on data security, weighting, and the real-world impact on subprime borrowers, this "innovation" looks suspiciously like a sophisticated marketing ploy.