SentiLink Announces Plans to Launch Repute, a Consumer Reporting Agency Built to Help Alternative Finance Lenders Make Better Decisions Earlier – AOL
SentiLink announced plans to launch Repute, a new consumer reporting agency designed to deliver credit products that help alternative finance lenders make faster, smarter decisions earlier in their funnels. The first product, the Repute Score for Alternative Finance, will be an FCRA-actionable credit score that lets lenders approve or decline nonprime leads before paying for a specialty bureau pull. General availability is slated for March 1, 2027.
Why Repute
Many lenders buy large volumes of leads and then pay for specialty bureau reports on most of them—an expense that could be reduced if better risk insights were available sooner. The Repute Score is designed to sit before that bureau call. Lenders can:
- Greenlight the lowest-risk leads immediately.
- Decline the highest-risk leads without further cost.
- Send only the uncertain middle to a specialty bureau for additional review.
Because the Repute Score is FCRA-actionable, lenders can use it directly for approvals and adverse actions.
Results from a Retrospective Study
In a backtest using one design partner’s historical lead funnel, the Repute Score showed the potential to:
- Reduce specialty bureau pulls by making definitive decisions on approximately 60% of leads at the Repute step.
- Better isolate nonpayment risk: leads that passed the bureau but were ranked highest risk by Repute were nearly twice as likely to early default compared to the portfolio baseline.
- Unlock more good originations: leads rejected by the bureau but flagged as lowest risk by Repute charged off nearly 20% less often than the portfolio baseline when funded by other lenders.
Leadership Perspective
“We’re excited to introduce Repute and grateful to our design partners for their trust,” said Naftali Harris, CEO and co-founder of SentiLink. “The alternative finance market needs fresher credit signals and more predictive data. Repute helps lenders improve funnel efficiency while better assessing repayment risk.”
Data Design and Independence
The Repute Score is built solely on inquiry and tradeline data contributed by participating lenders, including post-funding performance. It does not use data from SentiLink’s fraud products, and lenders do not need to be SentiLink customers to adopt the score.
Availability and Participation
The Repute Score for Alternative Finance will be broadly available to alternative finance lenders on March 1, 2027. Lenders can join now as data furnishers and evaluate the score on their historical lead funnels ahead of launch. The SentiLink team will also be connecting with industry participants at LEND360 in Austin from October 12–14.
About SentiLink
SentiLink provides identity verification, fraud prevention, and risk solutions that help organizations accurately identify customers and detect hard-to-spot forms of first-party fraud, including synthetic identities and identity theft. Its approach blends machine learning with insights from experienced risk analysts to deliver precise, real-time decisions.
SentiLink serves:
- 13 of the 15 largest U.S. banks
- 8 of the 10 largest U.S. credit unions
- 3 of the 5 largest U.S. telecom providers
- More than 500 additional companies and government organizations
Headquartered in San Francisco and founded in 2017 by Naftali Harris and Max Blumenfeld, the company has raised $85 million from leading investors. Each day, SentiLink verifies over 3 million identities and flags more than 150,000 high-risk applications, helping partners reduce fraud while approving more legitimate customers.
About Repute
Repute is SentiLink’s suite of credit products offered through a consumer reporting agency operated separately from the company’s other businesses. The first product, the Repute Score for Alternative Finance, will be generally available on March 1, 2027.
