Finicity, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mastercard, is partnering with banks to allow customers to instantly verify their identities, employment status and assets for quicker loan underwriting.

“On the lending side, it’s just a very high-friction space and has been traditionally if you think about it,” Ryan Christiansen, senior vice president of data access at Finicity, told Bank Automation News during Bank Automation Summit Fall 2022 in Seattle.

“With our products as a consumer, if you’re applying for a mortgage, you would be able to digitally verify your assets and that will pull the balances and verify that you’re the owner of those accounts, put that into a digital report sent out directly to your lender in a matter of seconds instead of days,” Christiansen said.

Lenders typically determine a potential borrower’s monthly cash flow before loans are finalized, and by using Mastercard’s API connections banks will be able to access necessary information almost instantly, he said.

Ensuring personal data is protected is imperative at Mastercard, Christiansen said, particularly as it partners with as Chase Bank, Wells Fargo and Navy Federal Credit Union, noting the connections stay within the financial institutions’ platforms.

“We partner with those financial institutions to allow you to access your data and your data via an API, where you will authenticate who you are on the bank’s platform,” he told BAN. “You’re never sharing credentials outside of your financial institution. [Mastercard] has security practices that are essentially financial-grade security practices.”