By Max Axler
Credit data can tell a powerful story. It can also tell an incomplete one.
The Federal Reserve recently reported that U.S. credit card balances rose to $1.26 trillion, a clear sign that many households are still carrying real financial pressure. But the delinquency picture is more complicated than the headline number suggests. Some of the headline delinquency figures appear to reflect old credit card debt that lenders have already written off but that still shows up on consumer credit reports. New serious delinquencies have been more stable.
That distinction matters because lenders, policymakers and consumers all depend on data to make judgments about financial health. The issue is bigger than one metric. Traditional credit data remains essential, but it can miss important context about how people are managing money today. Consumers may have steady income, consistent payment behavior and responsible cash flow, yet still be hard to evaluate if their credit files are thin, stale or incomplete. If the industry wants to expand access responsibly, it needs better ways to understand consumers as they are now, with clear permission and strong safeguards around how that data is used.
Too many credit decisions still rely heavily on a three-digit credit score, which can fail to reflect a consumer’s broader financial picture. When lending and credit currently hinging on these systems, I believe that locks roughly 45 million U.S. adults out of a system that could create financial opportunity for them and generate meaningful benefits for the broader U.S. economy.
Outdated underwriting systems are what create real economic issues. Overlooking millions of creditworthy people slows consumer spending and leaves families across the U.S. unprepared for the unexpected. A car breaks down, a bill arrives, a major purchase comes up — and the funding isn’t there. Without mainstream credit, these families face fewer options and higher costs, and the gap compounds. Over time, the choices determined by credit access shape where they live, the schools their kids attend, and even their health outcomes. It can lock out millions of Americans who, with a fuller picture, could be candidates for affordable credit.
Synchrony’s goal has been to responsibly expand access for credit-invisible consumers by incorporating thousands of additional data points into our underwriting approach. But using more data means asking consumers to trust us with more of their information. That trust has to be earned through clear consumer permission, secure data handling and plain explanation of what the data is helping us understand. This is central to Synchrony PRISM, our proprietary credit decisioning system.
We launched Synchrony PRISM in 2018 on the idea that more and better data, used in real time, can improve credit decisions. Since then, it’s grown from ingesting hundreds of data points to analyzing tens of thousands of signals to use in underwriting. In 2024, we enhanced PRISM by using applicant behavior to help us make better decisions. Synchrony PRISM used data or actions that an applicant was willing to take to help us separate how risky they were relative to applicants with similar credit profiles.
When a customer applies for credit at checkout with one of Synchrony’s card partners, Synchrony PRISM evaluates the applicant in real time. Artificial intelligence allows our proprietary systems to work through identity resolution and pull up to 9,000 data points on that applicant’s creditworthiness. If there’s not enough information, Synchrony PRISM turns to a key capability: cash-flow underwriting. With the consumer’s permission, we review signals such as income, bill payments, deposits and spending and average balances over time across various financial institutions. These important insights help us to lend responsibly and help applicants become reliable credit builders.
But the financial access problem is bigger than any one company can solve alone. Through Synchrony’s participation in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s Project REACh, a cross-industry financial inclusion initiative, we set out to learn if lenders can responsibly assess risk for applicants with no credit score or credit history. In the initial phase, Synchrony approved nearly 70,000 loans to individuals with no prior credit history. Within a year, more than 60% of those borrowers reached a prime credit score. These consumers were creditworthy all along.
Responsible, creditworthy consumers have been left on the sidelines for far too long, invisible to systems meant to serve them. As underwriting continues to evolve, real-time data access and customer behavioral signals can add important context to credit decisions. The goal is clear: innovate in ways that help lenders lend responsibly and expand credit access so more people can participate in the financial system.
All of this work comes down to trust. Consumers need a fair chance to show their creditworthiness, and lenders need to earn confidence in how they use and protect consumer data. That mutual confidence, built over time, is what expands access to credit responsibly. Sustaining it is what will help more Americans build healthier financial lives.
Max Axler is EVP and chief credit officer at Synchrony.
