RiskSeal’s Alternative Data Sources for Credit Scoring

Imagine this: a potential borrower approaches your lending organization, but there's no information about them in the credit bureau. Without knowing their creditworthiness, you can't approve the loan.

Enter the RiskSeal digital scoring system. Provide us with the borrower's data, and in five seconds, you'll receive a detailed profile with 300+ insights and a credit report, including their financial behavior and digital credit score. This information is sufficient to make an informed lending decision.

In this article, we'll explain the alternative data sources for credit scoring used by RiskSeal.

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The value of email lookup to the lender

According to The Radicati Group, there are about 4.5 billion active email users worldwide. This number is expected to grow every year.

This means that an email account lookup can give a lender access to information about 55% of the world's population.

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What email lookup by RiskSeal includes

Email lookup is the process of verifying the identity of potential borrowers based on their email address.
A single check can provide data that can determine if a particular email account belongs to a fraudster.
At RiskSeal, a single API call provides the lender with this information, including:

• Email deliverability.
• The presence of registered profiles on social media and other platforms.
• Domain information, including identification of free and disposable domains and suspicious top-level domains.
• Facts of data leakage from this address.
• Date of mailbox creation.
• Detection of disposable mail addresses.
• Presence in specific databases – blacklists, spam lists, etc.
• Registrations on various services.

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What kind of data will you get from email lookup

RiskSeal digital scoring system offers an innovative email lookup solution for fintech providers.

We analyze over 140 social media and online platforms and return a large data set to our clients. 

These include:

Data about the email owner. These include name, associated phone numbers and additional email addresses.
Online accounts registered to that address. We scan gaming platforms, dating sites, job search platforms, and other similar resources.
Linked social media accounts. As part of the social account search by email, our scoring system identifies all accounts that are registered to an email address on global and local social networks.
Borrower's avatars. We analyze avatars and other images from publicly available profiles and determine if they show the same person.

To learn more about RiskSeal's email lookup capabilities, check out a detailed piece on Reverse Email Lookup in Credit Risk Assessment on our blog.

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The role of phone number lookup in credit scoring

Along with email lookup, the use of an alternate data source called phone number lookup for identity verification shows good results. 

This is due to the widespread coverage of the world's population by mobile phone operators:

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Features of lookup by phone number at RiskSeal

Phone number lookup is one of the alternative credit data sources that allows you to get information about potential borrowers using their phone numbers.

At RiskSeal, such a check allows you to determine:

• Phone number data, including incorrect and disposable numbers.
• Virtual SIM cards.
• Social media accounts registered to the phone number.
• Correspondence of the country code and the subscriber's IP address.
• Presence of the number in databases associated with spam activity, high risk, and confirmed fraud cases.
• Matching the subscriber's registration data with the information provided in the credit application.

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Data available from phone number lookup

RiskSeal scoring system offers customers a powerful phone number lookup solution. With its help, you can reduce the threat of fraud, speed up the loan application decision process, reduce KYC costs, and expand your customer base.
We analyze a variety of databases, which allows us to provide the lender with detailed information about the potential borrower:

Phone number verification. Lenders are able to verify that the phone number belongs to the applicant. They also get information about a mobile operator and phone number and identify disposable, wrong numbers, and virtual SIM cards.
Linked online accounts. Thanks to a deep analysis of online resources, RiskSeal identifies all accounts registered on the web using the specified phone number. Fintech providers have access to user profile data, their avatars, and information about their activity on the page.
Device information. With RiskSeal, lenders get information about the type of device a potential borrower is using.

Learn more about RiskSeal's phone number lookup method in our article on improving credit scoring with it.

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Optimizing scoring models with IP lookup

IP lookup is another alternative data source for lending, actively used by RiskSeal.

Analyzing the unique identifier of a device on the web provides a wide range of information about each internet user.

This technology opens up a lot of opportunities for digital lenders, as over 60% of the world's population is active online.

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What IP lookup by RiskSeal implies

IP lookup is a method of obtaining data about a potential borrower based on IP address.

The IP analysis process determines the type of IP address and other information:

• The fact that the IP address is encrypted by using a proxy, VPN, or TOR (system browser).
• The presence of the IP address in blacklists of addresses used for phishing attacks, data theft, spamming, etc.
• Matching the applicant's location with the one specified in the loan application.

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What lenders can learn from IP lookup

Alternative data platform RiskSeal uses advanced IP address analysis technology to help credit organizations optimize credit risk management.

Here is a list of the data that RiskSeal's analysis allows you to obtain:

Geolocation of the loan applicant. You will have access to information about the country, city, and even the approximate address of the person. The data obtained can be compared with the data specified in the application.
Data about the internet provider. Find out which company provides the user with access to the Network.
Type of IP address. The borrower could potentially use a residential, datacenter, mobile, or business IP address. Keep in mind that mobile IP addresses change more frequently, so it may be more difficult to find the borrower later - for example, for debt collection.
Use of VPN, proxy server, or TOR. If this is detected, the borrower will be assigned a higher risk level.

Learn more about IP Analysis in our story.

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Perspectives of digital footprint analysis with RiskSeal

RiskSeal searches email and phone numbers in real-time. Our solution searches for applicant enrollment data and photos on over 140 online platforms:

• Social media: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, SnapChat, Instagram, etc.
• Messengers: WhatsApp, Skype, Viber, etc.
• Other web resources: Amazon, eBay, Netflix, Booking.com, Disney+, etc.

We analyze not only global internet platforms but also local resources.

For example, in India, Flipkart, AltBalaji, SnapDeal and many others are sure to be scanned.

In Mexico – DiDi, Rappi, Telcel, AT&T, Indeed or Computrabajo.

In Nigeria – Jumia, Jiji, MyJobMag, PropertyPro, Betfair, etc.

Having analyzed the data, we draw certain conclusions. For example, if a person uses premium services (Apple, Samsung), this indicates their solvency.

If the applicant has paid subscriptions (such as Netflix or Spotify) and makes monthly payments on time, this indicates that the applicant is reliable.

Having an account on LinkedIn or other professional resources is a very good indicator. This means that the applicant most likely has a job and is building a career.

We can also get information about place of employment, position, education, and experience on such platforms.

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Identity verification at RiskSeal

RiskSeal platform is not only about enriching your scoring models with alternative credit data.

We also have different ways to analyze and verify credit applicants:

• Face match
• Name match
• Location match

Explore detailed information about these identity verification techniques in our blog.

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Reliable creditworthiness assessment from RiskSeal

RiskSeal's scoring system instantly generates a 360-degree view of key user metrics. 

This includes an applicant's ready-to-use digital credit score.

In addition, we provide over 300 data points that can be used for feature engineering.

Learn more about our capabilities in the About us section, and check out our pricing policy on our Pricing page.