The news: Experian announced that it will acquire Own Up, an AI-powered mortgage shopping platform. The planned purchase will reinforce Experian’s push beyond credit data and into product discovery by adding mortgage shopping tools to its marketplace for consumer financial products.

How it works: Experian’s marketplace uses the company’s credit data to match customers with products including personal loans, credit cards, and insurance. Through OwnUp, marketplace users will be able to compare offers for purchase, refinance, and home equity loans. Its network includes more than 40 lenders.

Zoom out: Experian’s marketplace product and Own Up acquisition signal a push into financial product distribution—a role traditionally dominated by banks’ direct marketing channels. It also shows how Experian is using richer data beyond traditional credit scores—like demographics, income, nontraditional credit behavior, and public records—to more precisely target consumers with financial products.

Nonbank marketplaces also compete with financial institutions (FIs) for customer attention. By aggregating similar products from different FIs—or embedding their own—these newer players intensify competition for FIs, even as bank-branded apps and websites drive awareness of banks and their products and services.

Implications for banks: Experian’s Own Up acquisition supports life stage-based financial journeys, which are based on consumers’ needs at a given point in time. This approach to sales raises the stakes for FIs’ distribution of products and services and how they compete with both established nonbank financial companies, like Experian, and fintechs.

FIs need to seize opportunities to guide customers through moments like buying a home, paying for college, or planning for retirement. As our June 2025 report Future-Proofing Banking Through Customer-Centric Journeys shows, consumers engage with FIs around major life events. But most FIs wait for customers to initiate these interactions. Winning these moments requires proactive, personalized outreach powered by richer data.