Affordability rules make it easier for Loans Officers to assess income and spending risks within transaction data provided by an Open Banking connection.

Rules are applied once the initial Open Banking connection is established, and they will "run again" after any subsequent connection. In other words, if an applicant provides additional Open Banking data to cover missing accounts, the rules will re-evaluate using the complete dataset.

In the Dashboard, affordability rules appear in two places:

Here, you can see all the triggered rules and the corresponding strategy band at a glance. This provides a high-level overview of which rules are influencing the decision-making process.

For example:
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Within the Affordability tab, rules are displayed in context, alongside more detailed information to help you assess the application fairly and investigate the issues highlighted by the rules.

For instance, if the Bounced Payments rule is triggered, it will appear in the Income sub-tab, with the reason for the trigger and relevant data shown side-by-side.

Note: The tabs themselves display the worst status icon—such as a red X for Decline or an amber ! for Refer—providing a quick visual summary of the applicant’s financial situation.

In the Income sub-tab, you’ll find rules such as REF24: Income Verification, REF25: Income Stability, and DEC15: Bounced Payments. If no income affordability rules have been triggered, a message stating "No income affordability rules have been triggered" is displayed, ensuring the Loans Officer can confidently confirm there are no issues related to these rules.
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However, when rules are triggered, the contextual view provides detailed insights. On the left, the Rule Settings display the configuration for the rule, as shown in the example below (e.g. "Decline if 2 or more bounced payments in the last 2 months"). On the right, the Trigger Details explain why the rule was activated, based on the applicant's data (e.g. "20 bounced payments found in the data")

In the Spend sub-tab, you’ll find rules such as DEC16: Gambling Frequency, DEC17: Gambling Value, and DEC18: Buy Now Pay Later. If no spend affordability rules have been triggered, a message stating "No spend affordability rules have been triggered" is displayed, ensuring the Loans Officer can confidently confirm there are no issues related to these rules.

However, when rules are triggered, the contextual view provides detailed insights. On the left, the Rule Settings display the configuration for the rule, as shown in the example below (e.g., "Decline if gambling expenses exceed 10% of income in the past month"). On the right, the Trigger Details explain why the rule was activated, based on the applicant's data (e.g., "Gambling expenses totalled 20% of income in the past month").

Each affordability rule is fully configurable, allowing organisations to set thresholds and time frames that align with their specific lending policies. For example, the threshold for DEC15: Bounced Payments can be adjusted from 2 payments in 2 months to 3 payments in 1 month, depending on your requirements.

For specific information on configuration, please review our Affordability Rules article.

Because the rules are given in context in the relevant sections of the Affordability tab, the loans officer can easily investigate the transactions that have triggered the rule.
In the below gif, you'll see how easy it is the filter the transactional data to show the bounced payments over the length of the connection period, or within the last 90 days, 180 days of a custom date range.
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This kind of interrogation of the open banking data is possible in any of the affordability tabs and is a powerful tool in the right hands.

Affordability rules simplify the assessment of income and spending risks within transaction data provided by an Open Banking connection. Once the connection is established, rules re-evaluate if additional data is provided, ensuring a comprehensive analysis. In the Dashboard, affordability rules are accessible via the Rules Tab and Affordability Tab, displaying detailed information to help Loans Officers assess applications fairly. Configurable thresholds allow organizations to tailor rules to their lending policies. For deeper investigation, triggered rules provide contextual insights and can be easily filtered to show relevant transaction data