Why we started Abound

In 2010, our Co-Founder and COO, Michelle, moved to the UK from Singapore. She had a PhD and a good job at EY but yet no banks would give her a loan to help with her moving costs. Why? Because as far as UK lenders were concerned, she was credit invisible. She had no credit score which meant she couldn't access credit.

Credit scores have been around for decades and while the underlying credit reports include some important information, they don't tell the full story, and as Michelle saw first-hand they don't follow you if you move countries. If you haven't borrowed before, it can be hard to get a loan - a chicken and egg problem that didn't make sense in a world with an ever-growing amount of data.

At EY, she met Gerald, and together they advised many of the UK's major banks on credit decisioning. And while they kept on advising them to start using transaction data, none did. It became that in order to truly change the industry, they'd have to do it themselves.

The advent of Open Banking provided the perfect opportunity. Now, customers could securely connect their bank account(s), allowing lenders to see whether someone could afford to repay a loan or not, and make more responsible and inclusive lending decisions.

We launched Abound in March 2021 to do exactly this. Since then, we've made great progress. We've originated over £1.5b, saving customers millions in the process. And, we're just getting started.

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