News & Opinion
Insights, announcements and thought leadership from Credit Canary
From Our Blog
Mortgage lenders aren’t short of borrowers. They’re short of confidence.
July’s Bank of England data shows mortgage approvals falling while household borrowing keeps growing and more homes come to market. The gap isn’t affordability, it’s uncertainty in how lenders measure it, and that’s something lenders can fix without waiting for a rate cut.
UK CUSOs, what will it take to build one that works?
With the PRA’s CUSO rules now live, why has only one serious contender come forward, and what will it take to build one that really works?
Why the UK can’t scale financial inclusion pilots (it doesn’t need to be this way, here’s how)
NILS stopped lending with no route to scale, because nobody designed one. Build-operate-transfer is how energy and infrastructure solved this decades ago, and the UK already regulates a textbook example.
Britain’s most successful savings policy didn’t cost the Treasury a penny
Auto-enrolment reached 90% because government mandated it. The Saving Gateway died because it funded it. Why financial inclusion keeps waiting for a cheque, at about £464 a loan.
Consumer Duty Outcomes Monitoring: The Gap Between Knowing and Acting
The FCA’s July review asks what your MI changed. Lenders don’t stall for want of ideas, they stall for want of evidence they’d defend at board level. Starting with where declined applicants actually go.
Burnham loves credit unions. He’s also put them in a box.
The most credit-union-friendly politician in British history is days from Downing Street. The sector’s problem isn’t that he ignores it, it’s what he thinks it’s for.
Owning more of the front end is an amazing opportunity for brokers
The FCA wants brokers to own more of the front end. Most see a liability, it’s actually the most valuable asset a broker could own.
Behaviour is not vulnerability. Until the credit market can tell the difference, everyone loses.
A bank CRCO says there’s too much consumer protection in the UK. The FOS’s new claims-firm fees show what the real problem is, and why the fix sits at the point of decline.
Why the Smartest Lenders Are Reinventing the Scorecard to Win
In an AI era the scorecard stops being a static regression artifact and becomes a living thing, fluid, agent-driven and fused with payments. Why reinventing it is how lenders win.
When everyone has capital, the edge is data at origination
Private credit is shifting from deploying capital at pace to deploying it with precision. Why quality data at origination is the real moat, and what it means for UK consumer lenders.
Small-sum lending: what the UK can learn from the rest of the world.
Fixing APR is worth doing, but it won't close the £2bn gap. Five product models, from Australia's no-interest loans to Brazil's “low and grow” credit and StepLadder's savings circles, the UK could adapt now.
Using the FCA's Financial Lives Survey to shape credit unions' path to 2035.
Three national initiatives, a charity-funded referral engine, a money coach in every credit union, and AI-enabled payroll partnerships, sized illustratively against the FCA data. Up to 2m new members over a decade, with £63m flowing back into the Credit Union Foundation.
Open banking is one tool in the fraud toolkit.
Open banking is being sold as the new front line against fraud. It is, for the right job, with the right use case. Why CoP and VoP are the quiet wins, why APP and mules are the unsolved problems, and why layered defence is the only architecture that holds up.
The conditions are aligned for credit union transformation. The question is what we transform.
Rachel Reeves has put political will, common-bond reform and £30m behind credit unions. The moment has arrived, but if transformation just means restructuring, the £30m will reorganise the problem rather than solve it.
Why standalone open banking credit scores suck.
A note for lender CEOs about a story the industry has stopped telling honestly, and why "wider funnel" without the rest of the picture is a quietly widening loss curve.
The next era of regulated lending will be won by firms with a company brain.
The FCA’s H2 2025 complaints data is the clearest signal yet of where AI’s biggest opportunity in financial services really sits, and the lenders thinking about it now will define the decade ahead.
The arithmetic of affordable credit: a response to Fair4All Finance
£843m of member savings, only £584m lent out, £389m sat at the bank. Why capital alone won't close the £2bn affordable credit gap, and what will.
The aggregator is moving into the plumbing. The next broker is a chatbot, and Anthropic might want a licence.
Personal LLMs are about to eat consumer-finance discovery. The aggregator model is becoming plumbing; the broker is moving into the chat.
Lending journeys are leaking applicants who actually want to borrow, and what positive friction fixes
A four-layer model for rebuilding the lending journey around data quality, with a live calculator to model the impact on your own book.
Open Banking Completion Isn't a Tech Problem, It's a Design Problem
The industry median for open banking completion in UK lending journeys is 62%. Our worst month in the last year was 78.4%. Here's what 11 months of beating the benchmark taught us.
Data Should Be Hygiene, Not a Luxury, Introducing CONNECT
Smaller lenders are paying too much for basic data. CONNECT gives them API access to credit, identity, and affordability searches at a fraction of the cost.
Credit Canary Is Now FSQS Registered, And That's Just the Start
Three independent certifications that mean your procurement path is already paved.
AI Is an Amplifier, Not a Foundation: Why Depth Beats Speed in Financial Services
AI rewards the prepared. The companies that built deep domain knowledge before the AI wave are the ones who'll ride it.
Solar Demand Is Surging. The Real Question Is Who's Going to Finance It.
The banks tried green lending and walked away. Energy companies won't make the same mistake, because they're the only ones who can own the entire value chain.
Common Bond Reform: A Positive Step. Now Credit Unions Must Seize the Moment.
The government has scaled access to affordable credit, but legislation alone doesn't create growth. Here's what the sector needs to do next.
Ten Tactical Approaches for UK Credit Unions to Drive Financial Inclusion
Practical strategies credit unions can deploy today to support the government's financial inclusion agenda
Building the Future of Financial Inclusion
Key takeaways from 'A United Vision for British Credit Unions' and what the sector needs by 2035
What UK Credit Unions Can Learn from Their US Counterparts
US credit unions hold 18% of the car loan market. Here's what that tells us about innovation
The UK Financial Inclusion Strategy: What It Means for Credit Unions
Analysing the government's strategy through the lens of £410M in dormant credit union deposits
Unlocking Growth: How Credit Unions Can Win in Car Finance
Why car finance represents a massive opportunity for credit unions - and how to capture it
Press & Media
Lenvi
Lenvi partners with Credit Canary to enhance real-time arrears risk management
ABCUL
Credit Canary and NE First Credit Union collaborate to support at-risk borrowers
Credit Strategy
How the partnerships ecosystem fuels innovation for fintechs and their clients
IBS Intelligence
3 promising AI-based credit risk and analytics platforms in Europe
Tech.eu
Six fintechs reshaping Europe's financial ecosystem
How to Lend Money to Strangers
A canary in the credit mine (Podcast)
The Fintech Times
Fintech Wales celebrates brightest Welsh firms at London Stock Exchange
Fintech Awards Wales
Fintech Awards Wales 2024
Fintech Innovation Lab
Fintech Innovation Lab London, Class of 2023
Fintech Legal Labs
Fintech Legal Labs Cohorts
CFIT
Open Finance Blueprint
Technology Connected
Wales Technology Awards 2024
YouTube
Credit Canary at Fintech North (Video)
FF News
Fintech Wales opens the market at London Stock Exchange
Woodhurst
The role of open banking in protecting vulnerable customers
Fintech North
Fintech for Good showcase
The Wealth Mosaic
Woodhurst spotlight: Introducing the fintech incubator (Video)
Manchester Digital
Fintech Forum: The cost of living crisis
Finextra
Shift and Woodhurst launch Ignite to support fintech founders
The Fintech Times
Fintech Wales celebrates brightest Welsh firms on St David’s Day
Open Banking Expo
Open Banking Expo 2024
YouTube
Credit Canary demo (Video)
UK Tech News
Wales tech roundup, June 2024
CEO Review
Credit Canary, Award Winner
Business News Wales
Winners of the Fintech Awards Wales 2024 unveiled
Awards & Recognition
Open Banking Award
FF Awards 2025
Fintech Startup of the Year
Fintech Awards Wales 2024
Fintech for Good
Fintech Awards Wales 2024
eAwards
NTT Data Finnovation 2023
Digital Transformation Award
Wales Technology Awards 2024