CredoLab, a Singapore-based developer of bank-grade digital credit scorecards based on anonymous smartphone metadata, has partnered with iovation, a TransUnion company, specializing in device-based fraud detection and authentication solutions. CredoLab is integrating iovation's technology into its own to reduce fraudulent loan and credit card applications while optimizing digital customer onboarding for banks and non-bank lenders worldwide.

CredoLab is leveraging iovation's FraudForce with CredoLab's CredoApp, CredoApply and CredoSDK. FraudForce helps banks and lenders distinguish fraudulent from legitimate transactions by evaluating associated accounts and devices, past device history, and suspicious device behaviors. With the addition of FraudForce, CredoApply becomes an even stronger digital onboarding mobile app. CredoApply provides superior device intelligence encompassing 45 application fraud checks, home and work address verification, employment verification, KYC documents collection and alternative credit scoring. It is able to turn even unbanked users' "thin files" into "thick files".

Peter Barcak, CEO and co-founder of CredoLab, said, "Credit scoring has moved beyond the traditional to include understanding and interpreting repayment behavior through a combination of traditional and smartphone data points. iovation provides next generation digital data analysis to help confidently identify good customers and fraudsters."

"As credit applications increasingly go online so does fraud. In fact, iovation documented a 575% increase in online synthetic identity fraud against our financial services customers from 2015 to 2018," said iovation Vice President of Global Partnerships, Ed Wu. "We're looking forward to helping CredoLab empower its customers to make sound credit decisions through the power of device intelligence."

According to a recent global study by Forrester Consulting and TransUnion, nearly all financial services firms (94 percent) recognized that they have experienced some sort of fraud, whether it's identity theft/new account fraud, synthetic identity fraud, or account takeover fraud in 2017 and 2018.

This partnership supports CredoLab's mission to work with banks and non-bank lenders to improve financial inclusion and access to credit for consumers and small businesses left out of the traditional financial system. The integration of iovation's FraudForce with CredoApp, CredoApply and CredoSDK offers banks and lenders the ability to evaluate potential customers in a secure, transparent and cost-effective manner. Integrating FraudForce also helps CredoLab offer a one-stop-shop solution for banks and lenders to accurately score the unbanked, the new-to-credit and any applicant with a "thin file".