For many small businesses and individuals, the biggest hurdle to securing credit is a limited financial track record. Self‑employed individuals may struggle to document their earnings, and emerging retailers may not have the detailed records needed to demonstrate long‑term viability.
At the same time, many lenders still depend on slow, manual underwriting processes that require extensive documentation leading to delayed approvals, unnecessary declines, and a high number of abandoned applications. It’s no surprise that 81% of small business owners reported difficulty accessing affordable capital last year1.
A new suite of tools called Mastercard Credit Intelligence aims to solve this longstanding problem by providing solutions that enable consumers and small businesses to leverage a resource many already have: the data generated by their Mastercard transactions.
This transaction data helps generate timely insights into a business’s financial health. With the Small Business Credit Analytics (SBCA) tool, business owners can authorize Mastercard to share these insights with lenders, who can then integrate them into their credit decisioning processes.
Sharing these insights comes with strong safeguards. The business must grant permission before Mastercard uses or discloses the transaction-based insights, and all transactions are aggregated and anonymized. With greater visibility into a business’s operations, lenders can move with increased confidence, expanding access to credit while reducing risk and supporting inclusive, sustainable growth.
The Federal Reserve found that almost four in ten U.S. small businesses applied for financing last year2, highlighting the need for this type of advanced analytics to help lenders assess applicants quickly and accurately.
By surfacing metrics such as recent transaction activity, card‑volume trends, and chargeback behavior, SBCA can help lenders validate business legitimacy, assess stability, and predict repayments to help reduce underwriting uncertainty.
Ongoing insights into business activity and spending patterns help lenders identify new opportunities early, strengthen customer relationships, and support healthier portfolio growth. The result is smarter decisioning at every stage of the credit lifecycle.
In the U.S., many of these insights are powered by open finance, the technology that allows individuals and businesses to securely share financial data with third parties to access various tools and services. Open finance can be especially valuable for borrowers with limited credit histories. A small business with a thin credit file, for example, can share transaction insights, revenue trends, and payment behavior from its financial apps, giving lenders a broader picture of its stability and repayment potential.
The Mastercard Credit Intelligence offering is already gaining traction with partners in the U.S., Philippines, UAE, Egypt, Australia, and Brazil.
“A healthy digital economy is an inclusive one – and with the right insights, our trusted network and deep expertise, we can create new opportunities for consumers and small businesses who may have traditionally been overlooked,” Kaushik Gopal, executive vice president, Mastercard Business & Market Insights, said in a statement announcing the new products. “Together with our partners, we’re making lending smarter, more personalized and more secure – and in the process, helping to drive more entrants into the digital economy.”
