What Is an Affordability Score, and How Does It Impact Borrowing?

Loan affordability is an important factor to consider when you’re a lender, as it’s a key guiding principle of responsible lending. It’s also something you have to keep in mind when you’re out on the credit market, scouting for a suitable loan option. Being able to repay a loan comfortably within the stipulated repayment period is just as important as finding the right credit or lender.

This makes loan affordability a vital factor in risk assessments. With current FCA regulations requiring stringent affordability checks, lenders are increasingly relying on affordability scores to assess borrower creditworthiness. These scores are calculated using data such as your cash inflows and expenses, including debt commitments, credit standing and savings.

Ethical lenders like Salad take their social impact very seriously and go out of their way to ensure their services truly make a difference. That’s why they use open banking data to make accurate assessments and calculate loan affordability in a fairer way. This helps them offer tailored credit options while protecting their borrowers from undue financial risks. In this article, we explore affordability scores and their impact on borrowing.

1. Assessing Your Loan Affordability

If you’ve ever used smart budgeting techniques to improve your savings or pay off debts using prudent financial strategies, you may be familiar with assessments. Reviewing your finances is often the first step in smart budgeting. This includes listing out all your income sources, expenses, credit usage, planned expenses, mortgage and savings, emergency funds, etc. 

Doing this gives you a holistic view of your finances and is especially helpful when you’re considering borrowing credit. By assessing your finances this way, you’re able to plan for loan repayments better, without compromising your financial situation.

This is the exact thing that lenders do when they are trying to gauge your loan affordability score. With open banking data, this process has become far more streamlined and accurate, allowing lenders to accurately calculate your affordability score and offer suitable credit. This helps limit their lending risks as well as your borrowing risks, making for an improved credit experience.

2. How Open Banking Data Improves Affordability Scores’ Accuracy

Your credit score and history have always been key data points referenced by lenders across the credit market. Traditional lending institutions like banks use stringent criteria that often revolve around fair credit standing, making loans inaccessible and exclusive for those with poor credit.

Other lenders, like online direct lenders or credit unions, have gone beyond credit scores to offer inclusive credit to bridge the gap in financial inclusion for vulnerable borrowers. However, this has required them to invest more time in loan review processes to limit their lending risks and ensure borrowers get a fair offer.

With open banking systems, ethical lenders like Salad are able to arrive at loan affordability assessments more accurately and speedily, accessing real-time financial data. As a result, they’re able to offer you quick, same-day loans in a matter of hours for emergency needs like an urgent car repair or to pay off a vet bill.

This is incredibly helpful for lenders, as they’re able to offer you credit, keeping your current financial health in mind, and not just your credit score. As a result, they’re able to comply better with FCA regulations for responsible lending, offer tailored credit and limit risks for borrowers.

3. Impact on Borrowing

FCA’s regulations on responsible lending were introduced with consumer protection in mind to limit borrower risk, improve financial inclusion, and boost the overall borrowing experience. This was especially important in light of the increasing usage of BNPL schemes by young adults, which didn’t require affordability checks.

While this helped access credit, these schemes also increased borrowing risks, as they took on credit that they couldn’t afford to repay. This prompted the FCA to make affordability checks mandatory, making affordability scores a vital component of that. 

Affordability scores are calculated on a scale of 0-100, and while there isn’t an ideal score, 70 is considered to be a healthy indicator of your repayment capacity. 

If you have a low score, lenders will consider offering you a lower amount or secured credit products rather than unsecured ones. A high affordability score will get you higher loan amounts with fairer terms and conditions.

4. How to Boost Your Affordability Score

Boosting your affordability score isn’t rocket science, but if you have poor financial habits, this might be a work in progress. With patience and consistent effort, you can reach a healthier affordability score and access better credit when it matters the most.

One thing to bear in mind is that affordability scores, unlike credit scores, aren’t necessarily impacted by the amount of credit you take. Affordability scores focus on your repayment capacity and how well you manage your credit repayments.

If you’re looking to boost your score, consider planning for a realistic and smart budget that works for you. Consider cutting back on non-essential spending and setting aside the money saved from that for an emergency fund or a savings account. Doing this, even for a short period before making a loan application, can boost your loan affordability score.

Conclusion

With tightened FCA regulations, lenders can no longer rely on single-point checks and are encouraged to make thorough affordability assessments. For borrowers, this means doing your due diligence and adopting financially healthy habits to keep a healthy score. Consider using tools and banking apps to calculate your own affordability score to know how much you can borrow without compromising your financial health.