KakaoBank Opens Alternative Credit Assessment Score to 70 Financial Institutions

Business Agreement Signed with NICE Information Service
Plans to Expand Eligible Institutions Starting in Q4

On June 30, KakaoBank announced that it had signed a business agreement with NICE Information Service for the "Provision of Alternative Credit Assessment Scores to External Institutions." Under the agreement, KakaoBank will be responsible for developing the scoring model, while NICE Information Service will generate the scores using a system equipped with the model and provide them to external financial institutions.

With this agreement, KakaoBank will integrate its proprietary alternative credit assessment model, the "KakaoBank Platform Score (KaplScore)," which is based on non-financial data, into NICE Information Service's credit information system.

The "KaplScore" is an advanced model separately developed by KakaoBank to allow external financial companies to utilize the alternative credit assessment model currently used in its own loan screening process. It was developed by combining various types of non-financial alternative information based on actual consumer behavior and daily activities, such as micro-payments, taxi usage, and shopping.

The two companies plan to first offer the KaplScore in the fourth quarter to over 70 financial institutions participating in KakaoBank's "Credit Loan Comparison" service, and then gradually expand the number of institutions eligible to receive the score.

At the end of 2022, KakaoBank became the first in the industry to develop an "alternative credit assessment model" using only non-financial data, aiming to expand lending opportunities to financially vulnerable groups such as mid- to low-credit individuals, thin filers, and sole proprietors, for whom traditional credit assessments based on financial information alone are less precise.

As a result of applying this model, loans totaling approximately 1 trillion won were supplied to mid- to low-credit and sole proprietor customers who had previously been denied loans under the traditional model.

Yoon Ho Young, CEO of KakaoBank, stated, "We hope that by providing our self-developed alternative credit assessment model to external institutions, more financial consumers will be able to access better financial benefits." He added, "We will continue to expand the reach of alternative credit assessment and practice inclusive finance going forward."

Kim Jong Yoon, CEO of NICE Information Service, commented, "We are pleased to expand the domain of alternative information-based credit assessment through our collaboration with KakaoBank and to be able to stably provide this service to external financial institutions." He continued, "NICE will continue to lead innovation in credit assessment in the market, leveraging our data integration capabilities and technology-driven infrastructure."