Open banking in lending

The borrower starts the check in the loan application, chooses their bank and logs in to online banking. A licensed account information provider then reads the account through the bank's XS2A interface, the access PSD2 requires. The lender sees the account holder's name and IBAN and the transactions of the last 90 days, and with some providers credit cards, other accounts and co-holders, as the loan platform Giromatch (in German) lists.

From those transactions the lender reads salary and employer, the stability of income, spending, existing loans and warning signs such as overdrafts, returned direct debits or payments to debt collectors. DKB (in German) uses a digital statement of the last three months for personal loans, car loans, home improvement loans and mortgages, and asks for no further proof of income when the check is used.

Giromatch names fino digital, finAPI, Tink and finleap connect as the BaFin-licensed providers behind its checks and picks one per lending partner. finAPI adds categorization of transactions and cash flow and risk analyses for credit applications on top of the raw data.

Transaction data also feeds scoring models. A score built from income and spending patterns can also cover borrowers with a thin credit file, and machine learning models use the same categories; see credit scoring and AI in lending. The account information role and its BaFin registration are covered on account information services.

The check needs the borrower's explicit consent, and the data serves the credit decision. The new Consumer Credit Directive (EU) 2023/2225, which applies from November 20, 2026, requires the creditworthiness assessment to rest on information that includes income and expenses, and excludes special categories of personal data and information from social networks. Account transactions are income and expense data of that kind.

FIDA would widen the data a lender can read with permission to savings, loans at other institutions and investments, and lists creditworthiness assessment data among its categories. How this fits the German lending market is on lending in Germany.

Finance Loop is the meeting place for credit risk teams, loan platforms, account information providers and the bank API teams behind them in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It connects the finance, IT and AI communities, with events in Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg.

Finance Loop is a strategic partner of the Digital Euro Association, whose Digital Euro Conference in Frankfurt covers digital money infrastructure next to open banking, and it announced KI Exchange 2026 in Hamburg, where data and AI in banking were on the program.

Open banking lending is credit where the lender reads the borrower's account data, with consent, through a licensed account information provider and the bank's PSD2 interface. The transactions replace uploaded payslips and statements in the credit check.

Usually the account holder's name, the IBAN and the transactions of the last 90 days, sometimes also other accounts and credit cards. Lenders look at income, spending, existing loans and signs of payment problems.

No. Lenders that offer the check also accept the classic route with uploaded proof of income, which takes longer. Giromatch names one to three business days for that route.