Salad's Alex Marsh on lending beyond the credit score. Salad puts the number of UK consumers labelled underserved or too risky for mainstream credit at more than 20 million. The lender, which describes itself as the UK's largest consumer lending Community Development Finance Institution (CDFI), assesses those borrowers using Open Banking transaction data rather than credit scores. Its group CEO, Alex Marsh, was previously UK CEO of Klarna. He joined Salad in 2023 as a non-executive director and chaired the Salad Finance board before stepping up to lead the group. Speaking to The Fintech Times, he set out what transaction data shows that a credit file does not, and what it would take for mainstream lenders to serve the borrowers they currently turn away. Marsh's starting point is that a credit score looks backwards. "A credit score can tell you a lot about someone's past if they've used credit products, but very little about how they are managing their money today," he said. "It can capture missed payments or a CCJ that may sit on someone's file for years, but it often will not tell you whether they are paying their rent on time, covering their bills, managing a tight budget well or showing signs of financial stress right now." Open Banking, he argued, fills that gap with a real-time picture of income, expenditure and financial behaviour. "Having analysed billions of transactions at Salad, what we see again and again is that many people who are declined by mainstream lenders are actually managing their finances responsibly, living within their monthly paycheck and meeting all their payments such as direct debits," he said. "They are not necessarily shut out because they cannot manage their money. Often, they manage it much better than people who have a larger income. They are shut out because the traditional credit score system does not have enough information to understand them properly." The price of being declined. For many of Salad's customers the realistic alternatives are narrow. Marsh said they can include "high-cost short-term credit, doorstep lending and, at the worst end of the market, unregulated lenders." Salad says its customers save an average of £454 on a typical £1,075 loan compared with the lenders otherwise available to them. "The £454 average saving matters because it is not simply about offering a cheaper loan," Marsh said. "For someone managing a tight household budget, that difference can determine whether borrowing remains affordable or becomes something they struggle to get out of." In his view, mainstream lenders either decline this group or do not compete for it, often because traditional credit data suggests more risk than a fuller picture of current finances supports. "The result is a real contradiction: people with the least financial headroom can end up paying the highest price for credit," he said. A market failure, not a niche. Marsh frames the gap as a commercial problem as much as a social one. He pointed to around £2bn of unmet credit demand in the UK, and to an estimate from Fair4All Finance that improving financial inclusion could add roughly £7bn a year to the economy. "So this is not just a social issue; it is a significant market failure and a commercial opportunity," he said. Most of the tools needed already exist, he argued. Open Banking gives lenders a clearer view of current affordability and removes the need for manual underwriting, which at some lenders still means applicants sending in scans of bank statements and payslips. "The other big barrier is appetite: too many lenders still see this segment as either too risky or too expensive to serve," he said. Salad received more than one million applications last year and has lent over £300m to more than 190,000 customers since it launched in 2018. "That is not a niche market or a charitable exercise," Marsh said. "It is a sizeable group of consumers with genuine demand." Regulation could speed the shift by supporting affordability-led lending and better use of Open Banking, he added, but in the end the decision sits with lenders, who he said "need to stop asking whether this market is worth serving and start asking how to serve it responsibly." What Klarna taught him. Marsh's time at Klarna shaped his view that lending at scale is a data problem. "What Klarna taught me is that offering consumer credit at scale, and importantly with sustainable unit economics, is fundamentally a data challenge," he said. "It is critical that you make good lending decisions for the customer and the lender, using the best possible information." What he had to unlearn, he said, was "the assumption that the traditional credit system has already solved this for all consumers. It hasn't, and particularly for consumers on lower incomes or those with a limited recent credit history." People often come to Salad at a pressing moment: to fix a car, replace an essential appliance or deal with an unexpected bill. "We are not arguing that everyone should have access to credit," he said. "We are arguing that everyone should have the opportunity to be assessed fairly." Avoiding a new black box. Richer data raises its own question: whether one opaque score is simply being swapped for another. Marsh said a decline at Salad should be "rooted in affordability rather than a historic marker on a credit file", and that where possible the lender should be able to explain what is driving the decision "in terms a customer can actually understand". Salad says it was the first lender to embed benefit checking into its application journey, so that an application can still help someone identify support they may be entitled to when the company cannot lend. "Ultimately, using better data only works if it leads to better decisions and greater transparency," Marsh said. "The aim is not to create a more sophisticated black box; it is to understand someone's circumstances more accurately and lend only where we believe it is genuinely affordable." The next two years. Marsh is blunt about the pace of change in credit. "Today you can open a bank account in minutes or move money across borders in seconds, but the technology used to determine whether you're safe to lend to was built for a different era," he said. "Technology simply hasn't caught up and the people on the edges have paid the price." The shift he wants is for Open Banking to become the normal way affordability is assessed, rather than a bolt-on. Salad says the benefit checks built into its applications have flagged £872m in unclaimed benefits for more than 300,000 of its applicants, and it reports every repayment to the major credit agencies as part of a credit rehabilitation offer intended to give borrowers a route back into mainstream credit. Marsh called two years an ambitious timeline for Open Banking-based lending to become the norm for underserved borrowers. "It's on the market to recognise both the societal need and commercial opportunity, and act," he said. AI level 2 of 5: drafted by our AI editorial assistant from source material our editor chose; fact-checked, edited and signed off by Mark Walker, Editorial Director. What the levels mean * Rowen Brooks Rowen Brooks is an AI staff writer at Disrupts Media, the publisher of The Fintech Times, The Biotech Times, The Datatech Times and Disrupts. She reports across all four titles, covering financial technology, biotechnology, data and the wider field of emerging technology. Her work spans news, interviews, commentary round-ups and explainers, with a focus on how new technology is built, funded and adopted, and what it means for the businesses and people using it. She can be reached at [email protected]. View all posts Staff Writer

Jaja Finance appoints Chief Customer Officer. 7th October 2026 Jaja Finance has appointed Abby Vickers as Chief Customer Officer. In the newly created role, Vickers will lead a combined Commercial, Product and Analytics function and take end-to-end ownership of Jaja's customer and commercial agenda. Vickers joins Jaja from Klarna, where she has been CEO of Klarna Financial Services UK since 2019, leading the UK financial services business through its FCA authorisation and build-out. She brings a track record of combining analytics, commercial and risk functions through periods of significant change. Dave Goodman, Executive Chairman at Jaja Finance, said "Abby's appointment strengthens our commercial leadership at exactly the right moment. Bringing Commercial, Product and Analytics together under her gives us one clear owner of our customer and commercial agenda, and her experience building and scaling propositions gives us a real advantage as we enter our next phase of growth."

Wayfair expands Klarna payment options to Canadian shoppers. October 7, 2026 Wayfair is expanding its partnership with Klarna to offer Canadian customers the payment company's full suite of flexible payment options, while eligible U.S. customers will gain access to ongoing 0 per cent APR financing for purchases of up to six months. The expanded partnership covers Wayfair and its family of brands, including Joss & Main, AllModern and Birch Lane. Canadian shoppers will be able to pay for purchases in full, split payments into interest-free instalments or finance larger orders over time. "Klarna has been a trusted partner in helping our customers shop with confidence, and renewing this relationship was an easy decision," said Curtis Crawford, director at Wayfair. "Our customers are making meaningful investments in their homes, and giving them flexible, transparent payment options at checkout makes a real difference, and that's exactly what this partnership delivers." Flexible financing extended across brands The agreement gives eligible U.S. customers access to always-on 0 per cent APR financing for up to six months across Wayfair's full family of brands. The company said the Canadian expansion marks the first time Klarna's full range of flexible payment options will be available through Wayfair in Canada. The payment options apply to home purchases ranging from furniture such as sofas, dining sets and bed frames to outdoor furniture. Customers in both countries can choose among different payment methods based on their purchase and payment preferences. "Wayfair's decision to renew and deepen this partnership speaks to the trust we've built together and the real demand we're seeing for flexible payments for considered home purchases," said David Sykes, chief commercial officer at Klarna. "Home essentials is one of our fastest-growing categories in North America, and having Wayfair's full family of brands behind that momentum is a significant benefit for consumers in both markets." Klarna expands retail payment network Klarna said it has more than 120 million active users globally and processes 3.8 million transactions per day. The company said more than 1.2 million retailers use its payment solutions. Klarna offers payments online and in stores, as well as through Apple Pay and Google Pay. The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol KLAR. Wayfair operates as an online retailer focused on home products, offering merchandise across furniture and other home categories through its family of brands. Mario Toneguzzi, based in Calgary, has more than 40 years experience as a daily newspaper writer, columnist, and editor. He worked for 35 years at the Calgary Herald covering sports, crime, politics, health, faith, city and breaking news, and business. He is the Co-Editor-in-Chief with Retail Insider in addition to working as a freelance writer and consultant in communications and media relations/training. Mario was named as a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert in 2024. October 7, 2026 Subscribe. * indicates required