Experian is using email history to help identify borrowers who have little or no credit history, according to Ashley Knight, the company's senior vice president of product management.
In an interview with TheStreet Roundtable at Money20/20 in Las Vegas, Knight described how the history behind an email address can help a lender recognize an applicant. The same information can also raise questions about whether an identity is genuine.
"There are many thin file or no credit consumers that are out there today, and they can be hard to identify in the credit ecosystem because we've not seen them before," she said.
A thin credit file contains little borrowing history. Knight's point is that a person can be unfamiliar to the credit system while leaving a much longer record of everyday digital activity.
What an email address can show
"I think we undervalue how much we use email," Knight said.
She pointed to activities such as checking into hotels, attending conferences and boarding flights. That activity makes email "a highly predictive identifier to a consumer, especially where there is no credit data that exists," she said.
Recognizing who is applying for a loan is different from deciding whether that person can repay it. Experian describes its email intelligence as a way to validate customer information, connect identity records and assess fraud risk.
The company's description of the technology lists an email domain's reputation, how long an account has existed and behavioral risk among the signals available to businesses. Those signals can help distinguish a consistent customer identity from one that has been manipulated, according to Experian.
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The data behind the checks
Experian announced its acquisition of AtData on Feb. 23 . The purchase added information on more than 10 billion email addresses worldwide, according to the companies.
The companies had already worked together for more than 15 years. AtData says its email identity history stretches back more than 25 years and its network processes more than 150 billion signals each month.
Those are company-reported measures of the network's scale. They do not mean every address has a 25-year history or that every unfamiliar address belongs to a fraudster.
Knight said factors such as when an address was first seen, how frequently it appears and whether it matches a person's internet or postal address "can predict fraud as well."
"When we see an email come through for the very first time, we've never seen it in our database, that is a key indicator of risk," Knight said.
Her wording describes a warning signal, not a finding that fraud has occurred. The age and consistency of an identity are part of the check she described.
Credit decisions need a separate financial picture
Experian is also expanding a different source of information for lending decisions. On Oct. 6, it announced Experian Cashflow Data Bureau , a consumer reporting agency operating under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
That service uses bank-account information consumers agree to share. It can show income, spending, balances and how a person manages money alongside a conventional credit history.
Experian's launch announcement said nearly one in five consumers lacks access to credit or has damaged credit. That broad group is not the same as the narrower population with no credit file.
The company says its analysis found that combining cash-flow information with credit data could improve predictive performance by up to 40% and increase approvals by up to 25% without changing lenders' risk tolerance. These are Experian's findings, not guaranteed results for every lender or borrower.
The two efforts address different questions. Email intelligence can help establish whether an applicant's identity is consistent. Permissioned bank activity can give a lender more information about that applicant's finances.
This story was originally published by TheStreet on Oct 26, 2026, where it first appeared in the Innovation section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
