Core principle: purpose over payment method

Transactions are categorised based on what the spend is for, not how the payment was made.

For example:

A Direct Debit to an insurer is categorised as Insurance
A Direct Debit to Netflix is categorised as Entertainment

Although many Direct Debits and Standing Orders relate to essential spending (such as utilities or insurance), others relate to non-essential or discretionary spending. Categorising by purpose provides a clearer and more accurate picture of an applicant’s financial position.

This approach supports more reliable affordability assessments by ensuring spending is reflected correctly across Needs, Wants and Commitments.

Direct Debits and Standing Orders

Direct Debits and Standing Orders are not categories in their own right. Instead, they are treated as payment types, with the transaction category determined by the underlying purpose.

For example:

A Black Horse payment is categorised as a Credit Commitment (car finance)
A payment to the AA is categorised as Insurance

Direct Debits and Standing Orders are also classified as Positive, Negative or Neutral within the spending analysis, depending on their category (for example, High Cost Credit).

Transfers

Transfers are grouped into a dedicated Transfers factor, separate from Income and Spend.

This allows Loan Officers to:

View transfers in and out together
See the net transfer position at a glance
Identify where applicants may be financially dependent on others, or supporting others

Transfers are also shown in their own dedicated tab within the dashboard for easier review.

Payments to Credit Unions

Payments made to Credit Unions are categorised under Commitments.

This makes it easy to identify:

Payments the applicant already makes to your Credit Union
Payments made to other Credit Unions

This information can be particularly useful when assessing existing borrowing behaviour and ongoing commitments.

Transaction tables and payment types

The transaction tables are designed to provide a clear, consistent view of individual transactions without focusing on the underlying payment mechanism.

For each transaction, the table shows:

Date of the transaction
Pending status, shown using an icon and tooltip on the date where applicable
Category, based on the purpose of the transaction
Merchant, where this information is available from the bank
Transaction description, as provided by the bank
Amount of the transaction

By focusing on these fields, Loan Officers can quickly understand what the transaction relates to, how it has been categorised, and its impact on affordability, without needing to interpret technical payment types such as card payments, standing orders, or direct debits.

Pending transactions

What is a pending transaction?

A pending transaction is a transaction that has been authorised by the customer but has not yet fully settled with the bank. This most commonly applies to card payments and some online or contactless transactions.

At this stage, the final amount may still change, or the transaction may not ultimately be completed.

How pending transactions appear in the dashboard

Pending transactions are clearly marked as Pending in the transaction tables.

Key points to note:

Pending transactions are included in the category totals shown in the dashboard
Affordability rules are applied to pending transactions in the same way as completed transactions
Transaction data is a snapshot in time, based on the information returned at the point the Open Banking data is retrieved

Because the data is not a real-time feed, pending transactions do not later update to completed transactions within the dashboard. What you see reflects the applicant’s account state at the time their data was accessed.

This approach ensures recent activity is visible and assessed consistently, while remaining clear about the point-in-time nature of Open Banking data.