Experian acquires Look Who’s Charging to strengthen open data offering

Experian, an Irish consumer credit reporting company, acquired Look Who’s Charging, an Australian fintech startup, for an undisclosed sum to strengthen its open data offering.

The acquisition was made by its subsidiary Experian Australia & New Zealand.

Look Who’s Charging is said to resolve the issue of unrecognized bank transactions by giving clarification on the merchant behind the transaction instantly. The platform of the Australian fintech company is integrated with different Australian banks and their data is available directly to millions of Australians within already available digital banking applications.

Experian expects the acquisition of Look Who’s Charging to benefit businesses, financial institutions, and consumers from richer data.

The technology of Look Who’s Charging is claimed to help users to understand their bank statement data with the details it gives on the spend category and underlying merchant.

Stuart Grover – Look Who’s Charging founder said: “We are extremely excited to combine the technology and data we have built to support the Australian banks with Experian’s market leading open data technology.

“We are very proud to have built Look Who’s Charging from an idea, born from the frustration of unrecognised transactions to a product which helps millions of Australian consumers, in under 4 years.”

Experian further said that the acquisition of Look Who’s Charging will combine its own global open data solutions combines with the advanced enrichment capabilities of the Australian fintech company. The Irish consumer credit reporting company expects to create a major open data platform in the Australian market amid the recent legislation of open banking as consumer data right’s first stage.

According to Experian, its current open data solution, which was developed in the UK, makes up 40% of all requests for open banking APIs in the region.

Andrew Black – Managing Director of Experian A/NZ said: “If a transaction is unable to be categorised accurately, it is often classed as ‘unknown’ which can result in decisions impacting consumers being based on limited data. This can have a big knock on effect if, for example, banks are using one platform to help a customer understand their own income and expenditure, and another to decide what loan they can afford.

“With Look Who’s Charging’s enriched data integrated into our open data platform, we will be able to provide a uniquely accurate and comprehensive solution for the Australian market. This will help our customers lend more responsibly while enhancing their fraud checks and reducing their call centre traffic for unrecognised transaction queries, as well as ensuring consumers have a greater understanding of their financial situation.”

Prior to the acquisition of Look Who’s Charging, Experian had invested across five companies in the Asia Pacific region since 2017, which includes Grab, Jirnexu, C88 Financial Technologies, BankBazaar.com, to go along with CompareAsiaGroup.