Experian Partners With Black Opal to Bring Credit Options to US Immigrants

Experian and Black Opal are teaming up to boost consumer credit access to immigrants in the U.S., according to a press release on Wednesday (March 30).

Black Opal’s credit decisioning process will now be integrated with Experian’s PowerCurve and CrossCore platforms to help immigrants integrate into society more easily while at the same time improving their financial health.

Using functions available from Experian, Block Opal will be able to make real-time credit decisions while also managing using the platform’s tools to better manage identity verification and fraud prevention.

“We understand that many expatriates, professionals and immigrants lack access to traditional credit,” said Robert Boxberger, Experian’s president of decision analytics, North America.

“That’s why we’re proud to work with Black Opal to incorporate our data, advanced analytics and technology to enable real-time decisions while also mitigating fraud risks. Experian is committed to driving financial inclusion and providing clients with data-driven solutions that enable effective, secure decisioning in today’s dynamic environment,” Boxberger said.

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Black Opal offers a full suite of services geared toward assisting those who have just immigrated to the U.S., including Black Opal credit card for expatriates.

“As an Australian, I’m passionate about driving financial inclusion because I know first-hand how hard it is to develop a credit history in a new country,” said Matthew Holden, founder and CEO of Black Opal.

“Black Opal’s mission is to help our customers who have moved to the United States. We chose Experian because of its extraordinary breadth and depth of tools that enable Black Opal to make better decisions and make a real difference for our customers,” Holden said.

CrossCore, which is Experian’s digital identity and fraud risk platform, will support Black Opal’s goal of reducing fraud reduction risks by combining risk-based authentication, identity proofing, and fraud detection into a single cloud platform.

Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, and launched in 1996, Experiean operates in 37 countries with offices in Brazil, the U.K. and the U.S. The company collects and aggregates information on over 1 billion people and businesses including 235 million individual U.S. consumers and more than 25 million U.S. businesses.

PropTech startup Black Opal was founded in Sydney, Australia before moving to the Denver, Colorado in 2017. The startup offers credit cards, international foreign exchange, and international savings/funds in Australia, the U.S., U.K., Germany and other countries. Its offices are in the U.S., Australia and India.