Let alliance is our referencing partner and we are delighted to announce a game changing development to our tenant referencing.
Belvoir and Let alliance have pioneered the first Open banking referencing facility whereby the standard credit, landlord and employment references are sort – but in addition to that, we now have the ability to review up to the minute banking history for the incoming tenant that enables us to track and calculate inward and outgoing payments including bonuses, store cards, payday loans, and other credit agreements as well as the ability for the incoming tenant to afford their intended rental responsibility.
This has enabled us to gain a far deeper understanding of both a prospective tenants’ current commitments and also their income to outgoing affordability ratio on an open and transparent scale.
Open Banking: A secure new way to share your data
Open Banking is a change to the UK banking industry, designed to give tenants control over their data by allowing them to share their financial information quickly, electronically and in a secure environment.
This also allows tenants better control over the referencing process and for the majority of cases, have their reference processed within 24 hours.
Historically, collecting rent has always been a manual process with high processing costs and this development means we are able to equip landlords and tenants with state-of-the-art technology that can provide our customers with simple to use value-added services, as well as PSD2-compliant access to banks for data and payments requests.
New choice, enhanced security
Open Banking can be considered another sort of online banking transaction with the same security as for example checking your balance.
Providing consent for Open Banking will allow us access to a tenant’s previous rental payment history and employment income. We will only have access to this type of data as it will be used to verify a tenant’s income and outgoings, in order to accurately provide a reference.
We can also access more detailed information – with the tenant’s consent – on current, as well as historical income and expenditure. This can be combined with credit information to provide a more complete picture of a customer’s financial status.
Belvoir have always been at the forefront of tenant referencing which we believe is one of our specific draws for our landlords, but this development has moved this on massively and will ensure that we remain the leader in this field.
