London, 12 July 2022
London, 12 July 2022
CRIF, a leading provider of open banking services across Europe, won two accolades at this year’s Open Banking Expo awards as it marks its 25th anniversary in the UK.
The company took home the prize for ‘Best Third-Party Provider – International’ for open banking services, recognising the work CRIF has done to harness open banking, take data and analytics to the next level, and enable financial services providers in the UK and beyond to understand their customers better than ever before. CRIF in fact provides a pan European coverage (16 countries up to date) and a vertically integrated proposition, encapsulating connectivity, the best categorisation engine and an extensive suite of locally tailored analytics.
CRIF’s open banking-powered services have allowed financial services providers, across all markets, to increase consumer and business lending safely and responsibly by 7.5% and 9.9% respectively. In the last year, CRIF’s services have enabled 2,200,000 individuals and 200,000 businesses to access the finance they need, and in the process has helped further financial inclusion.
As well as winning best international third-party provider, CRIF was also recognised for its work with Penny, a provider of invoice financing, receiving the ‘highly commended’ award for the best commercial open banking partnership. Earlier this year, CRIF and Penny launched a new open banking-powered invoice financing service to support more small and medium-sized UK businesses, helping them to get paid instantly at a time when many are experiencing late payments in invoices.
The award wins come as CRIF celebrates 25 years of operating in the UK market. In this time the company has become an integral provider of services for the UK insurance sector and has also grown to offer digital solutions, including open banking, for major financial service providers in the UK. This is part of its wider global services, which support 10,500 financial institutions, 600 insurers and 82,000 business across the globe daily.
Commenting on the award wins, Sara Costantini, Regional Director for the UK & Ireland at CRIF, said:
“We’re thrilled to have been recognised as the best international third-party provider of open banking services, as well as being highly commended for our work to bring open banking-powered invoice financing to more UK businesses.
“As CRIF celebrates 25 years in the UK, these awards underline our commitment to open banking solutions and supporting our partners in the financial sector to innovate . Our mission is to now bring its benefits to more consumers, businesses, insurance companies and financial organisations through our diverse range of bespoke digital products and solutions.”
CRIF is continuing to rapidly expand its services, including in open banking and digital transformation, to banks and other financial services providers in the UK. Having previously invested over £200 million in the last four years on its open banking solution, CRIF has now committed to build on this this with a further £300 million of investment between now and 2023.
Major CRIF milestones in the UK & Ireland include:
• 1997: Established in UK
• 2000: Partner of the Elixir group for Life Insurance Companies
• 2002: Nominated Supplier for the Insurance Industry for the CUE (Claim Underwriting Exchange)
• 2009: Service Provider for the MOJ (Solicitors/Insurance)
• 2015: Central Bank of Ireland choose CRIF to establish and operate new Central Credit Register
• 2016: The 1st UK pet insurance claims database: CACHE Pet
• 2020: Launch of Credit Passport a real time credit report providing the most accurate and current view of an SME’s credit quality
• 2020: Launch of Sherlock Detection for pet insurers
• 2020: Launched CRIF Digital suite of products including Credit Passport – utilising open banking to speed up the decisioning process for lenders and improve SME creditworthiness
• 2022: CRIF acquires majority stake in Irish car finance checks specialist Hire Purchase Ireland
