Creditsafe, the global business intelligence provider, today outlined plans to broaden its UK credit services to include consumer credit reporting, building on its established UK presence and data capabilities to help build a more competitive, innovative and transparent credit information market.
The UK consumer credit data market, valued at around £800 million1, has long been dominated by a small number of providers, leading to inconsistent data standards, limited innovation and barriers to new data‑sharing models.
Creditsafe sees an opportunity to improve how the market operates by placing higher‑quality data and modern, well‑governed data‑sharing frameworks at the centre of its approach. By building a more complete, accurate and representative picture of financial behaviour, the company aims to give lenders clearer, more reliable insight and ensure consumers receive fairer, more consistent credit decisions.
This approach reflects the priorities set out in the FCA’s Credit Information Market Study, which highlights limited competition, inconsistent data quality and the need for a more resilient ecosystem.
The company enters the UK consumer credit market with a strong and well‑established foundation. Creditsafe has been operating consumer credit bureaus in the Nordics for more than 20 years, with half of all customers in Sweden and Norway having accessed its consumer credit services.
As a fully compliant, designated commercial credit reference agency, the company supports more than 120,000 customers globally and is trusted by major banks and lenders to handle sensitive financial data, drawing on a global network of more than 9,000 data sources. Creditsafe is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and holds internationally recognised security and resilience certifications, including ISO 27001 and ISO 22301.
Cato Syversen, CEO of Creditsafe Group, said: “For more than 25 years, Creditsafe has proven that better data leads to better decisions. Consumers deserve the same level of accuracy, transparency and accessibility that businesses have relied on for decades, and we are bringing that standard to the market.”
“We fully support the FCA’s ambition for a more open, consistent and resilient credit information ecosystem. Higher‑quality data and better‑governed data‑sharing models are essential to achieving that, and we are already demonstrating what this can look like through innovations such as Verify where we’ve brought together business and personal financial insight together in one place.”
“We do not believe this is something any single organisation should build alone. We want to work with lenders, partners and the wider industry to create a fairer, more intelligent and more inclusive credit system. This will give lenders clearer insight and give consumers the accurate, transparent and accessible data they deserve.”
Creditsafe works with lenders across the UK and plays an active role in industry governance, engaging with the FCA, UK Finance, and the Credit Information Governance Body (CIGB) to support the development of a modern, fair and resilient credit information framework.
With operations in more than 25 major cities worldwide and over 1,000 employees, including more than 500 based in Cardiff, the business has been operating in the UK since 2000, reflecting a long‑standing commitment to the UK market.