Winner of Tearsheet’s Best Data Aggregator / Fintech Partnership Award: FinLocker and Fiserv Put Homeownership Within Reach

Tearsheet recently recognized the winners of our 2020 Data Awards. We’re running a short series on the winners and other top applicants as part of our ongoing coverage of financial data. Tearsheet’s Resilience Awards are currently open for submissions.

Tearsheet’s Best Data Aggregator / Fintech Partnership Award is intended to go to the a partnership between a financial data aggregator and fintech firm that creates more value than the individual parts.

Our judges looked at submissions against 4 criteria:

• Creativity
• Innovative thinking
• Consumer value
• Results related to KPIs

The context

For many people, the path to home ownership and financial wellness is a difficult and confusing one. Low and middle income consumers, veterans and those in financial need lack the opportunity of hope in home ownership and financial wellness. Without new solutions, this journey for a lot of consumers would be painful, complicated and perhaps impossible.

The partnership

FinLocker and Fiserv are helping to pave this path for low- to moderate income borrowers and veterans, putting their goals within reach. You can read an in-depth case study we published recently on the partnership between both companies.

FinLocker is a personal financial assistant tool that enables loans and financial transactions. With consumer consent, FinLocker captures key borrower data (e.g., assets, income, taxes, credit, real estate, credit, insurance, and more) and applies intelligent analytics like loan product recommendations based on a consumer’s financial profile, asset and income verification, and more.

"Focusing on mortgage, we’re continuing to see a massive race of large fintechs racing to get to the consumer first," said Finlocker’s president, Brian Vieaux. "Finlocker really arms our accounts with a tool that allows them to compete with large fintechs under their own logo. That’s driving growth for us."

From a fully enrolled FinLocker, a consumer can share data and documents securely with a lender to initiate a mortgage application.

The impact

The partnership between FinLocker and Fiserv allows lenders in the FinLocker network to incorporate financial data aggregation and personal financial management tools from Fiserv into the loan preparation process for LMI borrowers and veterans. FinLocker leverages AllData Aggregation from Fiserv to organize consumer financial data from over 18,000 sources. By utilizing the API solution AllData provides, FinLocker can aggregate the information needed by a given customer in real time. This enables consumers to better plan and prepare for their financial futures in advance of a loan application, saving them time, money and enabling a better customer experience.

Recently, FinLocker partnered with a non-profit group, Vetted VA, to create the Vetted VA Go Bag powered by FinLocker. Vetted VA serves an online community of nearly 10,000 Veterans. Vetted VA exists to "vet" or verify all information for the veteran consumer. Go Bag also assists veterans with financial literacy and planning, enabling them to more easily set and reach their financial goals. With FinLocker, thousands of veterans and their families, are now better prepared for long-term financial success.

"That was a place we thought we could make a huge difference for consumers — getting them out of the spiral of payday lending and expensive loans," said Fiserv's vp of digital payments and data aggregation.

"If you use that as the foundation, when we met the Finlocker folks, theirs is a story of financial wellness — how do we help consumers get their financial lives in order so they can consider first-time home ownership in an informed and educated manner."