Finicity is part of the Mastercard family. Our open banking platform provides the financial data you need.

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–FundingShield, a market-leading, cloud-based firm providing fintech solutions to manage risk, compliance and fraud prevention, has entered a partnership with Mastercard to leverage its open banking platform delivered by Finicity, a Mastercard company. FundingShield provides live, source data-based technology products and SaaS solutions that have been used to secure the funds of over $2.5 trillion in mortgage closings.

FundingShield CEO Ike Suri shared, “FundingShield has over 95% coverage of licensed service providers in the real estate, mortgage, closing and settlement space in our live repository. This partnership with Mastercard allows us to leverage its open banking connectivity of over 95% of U.S. based deposit accounts for consumer-permissioned access to real-time, bank-sourced data to expand our B2B and B2B2C payment verification solutions for clients.“

This partnership expands FundingShield’s offering within the real estate, mortgage and title sector with solutions that protect buyers, sellers, brokers, bank and non-bank lenders, warehouse lenders, and title and settlement entities. More broadly, the firm’s solutions provide risk management surrounding payments to vendors, suppliers, and other outgoing fund recipients in markets where cybersecurity experts estimate cybercrime costs to reach over $10 trillion annually by 2025.

Learn more about this partnership here.

Jorn Lambert joins Fintech Insider host David M. Brear and guests to ask “How does Big Tech shake up the payments industry?” 

David, Jorn and guests discuss how partnerships, acquisitions, processes and public fallouts affect the relationship between financial services and Big Tech, how the relationship has developed, the challenges in that relationship and how the industries cross over and influence each other.

What does the future look like for Big Tech and the payments industry?

To learn more and listen to this podcast episode, click here.

Five open banking startups from around the world join new Start Path Open Banking program to access resources, expertise and tools to grow

Mastercard has launched the Start Path Open Banking global program to engage open banking startups on their path to scale, uncover unique opportunities to co-innovate and power experiences that enable consumer choice. The companies handpicked for this inaugural class – Dapi, Finantier, mmob, Mono and Paywallet – demonstrate strong synergies with Mastercard’s tech-driven approach and are committed to putting consumers and small businesses at the center of where and how their financial data is used to further access services they want and need.

During the three-month program, startups will have an opportunity to leverage Mastercard’s open banking expertise and market insights and learn more about the company’s open banking platforms through wholly-owned subsidiaries Finicity and Aiia.

“Open banking is a natural progression of how Mastercard has always embraced innovation and consumer trust with equal measure, and how we’ve remained a trusted partner for our customers. We are thrilled to launch the Start Path Open Banking program and welcome five high-growth startups from around the world to collaborate with us and accelerate open banking innovation.”

Blake Rosenthal, executive vice president, Fintech & Segment Solutions at Mastercard

Learn more about the inaugural Start Path class, and access a link to apply for future Start Path Open banking classes here.

Give consumers a priceless asset: more time. Endless errands, work tasks and countless obligations big and small chip away at their free time and fill their schedules. Applying for a loan shouldn’t add to that.   

To power a faster, better mortgage experience for consumers, Freddie Mac’s Loan Product Advisor asset and income modeler (AIM) continues to evolve, now including paystub data in addition to direct deposit data for income assessment. These cost-saving efficiencies provide increased rep and warrant coverage while continuing to meet Freddie Mac’s strong credit underwriting standards.

Open banking drives new mortgage capabilities

Using consumer-permissioned data from trusted third-party providers like Mastercard (with some services delivered through Finicity, a Mastercard company), direct deposit plus paystub increases the confidence in income calculations by matching digitized paystub data to borrower direct deposit history sourced from trusted providers. 

Mortgage Verification Service (MVS) supports this new AIM capability by providing direct deposit transaction data paired with digitized paystub data to fuel this innovative, data-driven approach. It identifies the income stream that matches the paystub, delivering accurate risk assessment results.  

Assets, income and employment verifications are vital to mortgage lenders looking to verify borrowers’ finances. However, between unreliable results, miscommunications and paperchases, verifying assets, employment and income can be cumbersome. MVS helps borrowers get faster approvals with fewer conditions up front, allowing them to close and move into their homes faster.  

“Partnering with Mastercard ensures we can deliver the best tools and insights the industry has to offer. This collaboration will assist lenders with quickly and easily obtaining income verification.”

Daniel Miller, Freddie Mac Single-Family Director of Strategic Technology Partnerships

MVS can help lenders: 

Efficient assessment 

AIM leverages consumer-permissioned data from open banking providers like Mastercard to better identify pay deposits using accurate and verifiable data that meets Freddie Mac’s underwriting standards. Lenders can automate the manual processes of assessing borrower assets, income and employment. This can improve the success rates for identifying income and employment by reading information provided on a paystub and verifying income transactions within a borrower’s bank account. 

“Partnering with Mastercard ensures we can deliver the best tools and insights the industry has to offer,” said Daniel Miller, Freddie Mac Single-Family Director of Strategic Technology Partnerships. “This collaboration will assist lenders with quickly and easily obtaining income verification.” 

How it works 

Previously, direct deposits to a consumer’s bank account would qualify for rep and warrant assessment. With enhanced direct deposit and paystub capabilities, a borrower or a loan officer can upload a paystub and the technology will match the data on that paystub with the deposits from the borrower’s asset report, boosting the rep and warranty success rates and income gross-up.

The asset report can include 24 months of direct deposit transactional history and also includes income streams identified by the open banking platform. Now, with the added paystub capability, Mastercard can add a paystub report that can provide greater success assessing income through direct deposits.  

The paystub report generated through MVS has two sections; the top section includes digitized paystub information. The bottom section is up to 24 months of income stream credit transactions only. These income streams are reconciled with the deposits shown on the asset report.  

As an added bonus, the reduced cost of implementing MVS is reflected directly in the balance sheet. On average, up to 7 days can be cut off the processing time for each loan. The hours formerly spent by loan officers chasing down borrower documents are invested in higher-return work activities such as marketing and sales to drive additional loans. The new AIM capability will be available to Freddie Mac-approved Sellers using Loan Product Advisor beginning June 7, 2023. MVS is available via direct integration and ecosystem integrations including SimpleNexus & ICE Technology and Order Reports Service in the Client Hub today. 

Want to elevate your efficiency while enhancing the customer lending journey?  Get started today.

Freddie Mac (OTCQB: FMCC) today announced enhancements to its ground-breaking automated income assessment tool that allows lenders to assess a homebuyer’s income paid through direct deposit to also include the borrower’s digital paystub data. This detailed information can help lenders calculate income faster and more precisely to improve loan quality, simplify the mortgage process and, most importantly, expand access to credit.

“Over the last year, we’ve consistently rolled out innovations to ensure our digital tools are improving speed and efficiency, reducing risk and, ultimately, helping us serve our mission by reaching more qualified borrowers. Today’s innovation further automates income assessment by using historical direct deposit pay patterns and current gross income from recent paystubs, which can help more families achieve homeownership.”

Kevin Kauffman, Single-Family Vice President of Seller Engagement at Freddie Mac.

This new AIM capability will be available to Freddie Mac-approved Sellers using Loan Product Advisor beginning June 7, 2023. Finicity, a Mastercard Company, is the initial service provider supporting Freddie Mac’s AIM for income using direct deposits plus paystub.

Read more about this inclusive innovation here.

Loanspark partnered with world-leading tech brands Mastercard, Middesk, and LexisNexis to enhance, speed up, and secure service delivery for its co-branded partners and their business customers.

A partnership with Mastercard enables Loanspark to leverage Mastercard’s open banking platform, with some services delivered through its subsidiary, Finicity, allowing businesses to establish direct consumer-permissioned connections with their customers’ bank accounts. This enables SMB owners to submit financial information securely and easily while focusing on running their business, and in turn allowing Loanspark to make better credit decisions by quickly verifying the borrower’s financial details. Accurate borrower information minimizes the lending risks and increases accuracy and speed of funds for SMBs.

“Small businesses are increasingly looking for greater choice in how they borrow, pay and manage their finances. Partnering with organizations like Loanspark provides small businesses with a streamlined process to gain access to capital and putting their financial worries at ease.”

Andy Sheehan, EVP, US Open Banking, Mastercard. 

Read more about this partnership here.

Innovations in finance and payments are unlocking new experiences for consumers and fintechs alike. As of 2022, 78 percent of adults in the U.S. prefer to bank via a mobile app or website. As more people open accounts and manage their finances online, digital transaction volumes are projected to reach nearly $15 trillion by 2027. 

To further its vision of providing safe, simple, and smart choices in payments and financial services, Mastercard is launching an enhanced Open Banking for Account Opening solution. This innovation integrates account owner verification with identity insights into a single API (Application Programming Interface) to help businesses meet their customers’ needs for security and transparency.  

“Digital account opening is central to onboarding new customers and growing a business. Mastercard is uniquely positioned to help fintechs and banks onboard customers safely and seamlessly to accelerate growth while protecting themselves and consumers from the risks of fraud and false declines.”
 

Jess Turner, EVP, Global Open Banking and API 

Secure digital account opening helps fintechs and banks confidently know who their customers are and that they own their linked accounts. Read more about this new Mastercard solution here.

Mastercard’s Serenie Gagon, Vice President, Product, Payment Solutions spoke on the Accelerating Shift to Digital Payments panel at the Smarter Faster Payments 2023 conference in Las Vegas.

Gagon said security and ease are always top of mind in any type of payment, and best practice for account-based payments involves “making sure that the person who is connecting the bank account has the authority on that account.”

“The trick with having security and preventing fraud is you don’t want to introduce so much friction that it’s not worth it for a consumer or user to use that payment method or to use that tool. It’s about letting the good guys through, with less friction, and minimizing the challenges that they face.”

Serenie Gagon, Vice President, Product, Payment Solutions

To access the full session link and find out more, read here.

American Banker makes the case for smarter innovation through collaboration

Mastercard is extending its services and technology reach, including deals with JPMorgan Chase, LSEG/Giact, Stax’s CardX and Jack Henry & Associates, enabling Mastercard partners to connect merchants to payments, improve authentication and streamline transaction processing.

“For the partners, the networks like Mastercard bring their technology and processing capabilities, but I think even more crucially they bring that brand and extremely high levels of trust,” said Gilles Ubaghs, strategic advisor for commercial banking and payments at Aite-Novarica Group.

Mastercard’s multi-rail payments approach gives consumers more choice. Digital first and open banking offer an expansion of that choice, while ensuring transactions are easy and safe.

Read about Mastercard’s innovative partnerships at American Banker.

Our focus on the developer experience has resulted in a platform and APIs that are designed to meet the needs of developers throughout their onboarding and integration journey: rich documentation, tutorials, quick start guides, and technical and product support. 

Mastercard Developers gets you up and running quickly with auto-provisioned sandboxes, Postman Collections, reference and demo applications and sample code. We’ve also developed an intuitive developer dashboard that facilitates easy API and encryption key management.

Find out more about Mastercard’s developer experience and access links to our resources here.