Posts by Adrian Davies
Canadian credit unions: unlock small business lending with Open Data
Canadian credit unions have long championed the small business community, through business chequing accounts, working-capital facilities, and startup lending. Yet when it comes to lending, many SMEs remain underserved, not because credit unions lack appetite, but because traditional underwriting makes small business loans expensive to assess and slow to deliver. As Canada moves toward Consumer-Driven…
Read MoreFive features for faster decisions: the foundation to double credit union lending
Before introducing new features in 2025, NestEgg rebuilt its Decision Engine Dashboard from the ground up. Dashboard 2.0 became the foundation for everything that followed, delivering a 30% reduction in loan turnaround time. Here’s what we’ve built on that foundation (so far): Price right, grow fast Flat-rate pricing creates an impossible dilemma. Low-risk borrowers go…
Read MoreOpen Data vs Open Banking: a guide for Canadian credit unions
As Canadian credit unions prepare for Consumer-Driven Open Banking in 2026, there’s a critical opportunity being missed: Open Data for credit assessment. While most discussions focus on account portability and switching, Canadian credit unions could leverage a much broader Open Data ecosystem for lending decisions, as UK credit unions have done since 2018. In this…
Read MoreHow to stop credit cards driving bad debt
One factor, above all else, drives credit union bad debt, and that is credit cards. NestEgg’s analysis of credit union defaults reveals a clear pattern: consistently high credit card balances and rapid balance growth (high velocity) result in a default rate that’s 50% higher than the average. Warning signs appear across all credit profiles. In…
Read MoreCredit union referrals are central to the Financial Inclusion Strategy
The UK Government’s recently published Financial Inclusion Strategy highlights a continuing challenge for the financial services sector: “The provision of affordable credit to financially excluded people is a challenge that the financial services sector as a whole must rise to meet.” The strategy makes clear that mainstream lenders, like banks, and community finance providers, like…
Read MoreOpen Data for Canadian credit unions: getting ready for Consumer-Driven Banking
Canada is moving from discussion to delivery. In Budget 2025, the federal government confirmed legislation to complete Consumer-Driven Banking (CDB) – often called Open Banking – signalling the start of an Open Data era for financial services. For credit unions, that means member-permissioned data becomes a standard input to faster, fairer lending. With rollout expected…
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