Knoma partners with Fuse to automate credit decisioning - unlocking accessible education for millions across the UK

• Education lender Knoma to use Fuse by Pave’s Open Banking insights to enhance credit decisioning.
• Partnership will enable Knoma to improve acceptances, making education more accessible for millions across the UK through interest-free financial solutions.
• Open Banking data will empower Knoma to more accurately collect and assess affordability data for people seeking finance for education.

Education lender, Knoma, has selected Fuse by Pave as its Open Banking partner, to enable it to improve decision-making on applications from borrowers seeking education finance.
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Knoma, which offers fee-free and interest-free finance solutions to support people to enrol on education courses, will use the income, expenditure, and risk insights provided by Fuse by Pave’s Open Banking platform to enhance its affordability and creditworthiness checks for prospective borrowers. 
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The partnership will enable Knoma to increase the speed and accuracy of its decision making processes, better assess borrower eligibility, and ultimately ensure students can quickly access the level of finance that is right for their financial situation. The partnership will help Knoma to grow its customer base through auto-decisioning. Initial measurements show Fuse by Pave has increased auto-decisioning rates at Knoma by 40%.
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Using insights formed through the analysis of Open Banking data, Fuse by Pave provides lenders with 97% accuracy in affordability tests, clearer insights into consumer affordability, reduced rate of defaulted loans, and improvements to borrower outcomes.
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As the cost of living crisis continues to put pressure on consumer finances, many people may be put off pursuing education due to the high cost, even if it may benefit their career in the long term. Knoma has been set up to solve the ongoing issue of unaffordable education, and Fuse by Pave will be a critical part of achieving this.
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Sho Sugihara, CEO and Co-Founder, Fuse by Pave, comments: “We are delighted to be working with the team at Knoma, helping them progress their mission to make education more inclusive and affordable through interest-free finance at a critical time. Using Open Banking insights to inform the decision-making process will give Knoma the tools to expand its customer base safely, while enhancing borrower protections.
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“By removing the barriers to improve lending decisions, this approach provides more personalised products and boosts equality - all whilst reducing the number of defaulted loans, and ultimately protecting consumers.”
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Brett Shanley, CEO and Founder, Knoma, comments: “Thanks to the Fuse platform, we now have significantly more confidence when it comes to making decisions on loan applications. Especially at times like these, when personal finances are so squeezed, it is critically important that we are lending safely and only to people who can safely afford to repay. Fuse has helped us to do just that.
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“We spent months researching the marketplace - landing on the right Open Banking partner was incredibly important and I am pleased to say that the research paid off. The quality of the data insights mean that we can rest assured we are doing the right thing by our customers, making education accessible in a safe way that presents no risk to their financial health.”
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Fuse is the latest product from credit builder app, Pave. Since launch, Pave has analysed more than 150,000 lending decisions, 1.5 million consumer credit reports, and over 400 million Open Banking transactions. Pave seeks to bring more financial equality to millions across the UK. As a fully regulated credit builder, receiving nearly half a million downloads to date, Pave utilises Open Banking transactions to help consumers build better access to credit.