Do Banks Share Every Transaction Details with Experian Now? Experian "Look Who’s Charging" Feature in ING App

nuker on 07/07/2025 - 19:29
Last edited 07/07/2025 - 22:10

In ING app you can tap on any transaction and it opens "Transaction Details" page.

At the bottom of it there is this text:
"Merchant information is provided by Experian Look Who’s Charging. Found a mistake or missing information in the merchant details? Send them a message"

I googled about Look Who’s Charging and arrived at this, then this Experian marketing page.

What is concerning on the last page:

  • Our comprehensive data, analytics and tools powered by Experian Look Who's Charging, help provide a more complete and accurate view of your customers’ income, expenses and financial position in real-time, so you can make better decisions across the customer lifecycle.
  • Accurately analyse your customers’ income and expenses for an instant understanding of their affordability.
  • We have an unrivalled comprehensive dataset – we process over 7 billion transactions per month with a match rate of over 98% and a response time of less than 0.3 seconds, for accurate and fast insights.
  • We are trusted by many financial institutions, including Australia’s largest banks

Screenshot

Also, on press-release page:

  • “If a transaction is unable to be categorised accurately, it is often classed as ‘unknown’ which can result in decisions impacting consumers being based on limited data. This can have a big knock on effect if, for example, banks are using one platform to help a customer understand their own income and expenditure, and another to decide what loan they can afford. ….
  • Over 1 billion transactions are enriched every single month through Look Who’s Charging’s platform to provide Australian consumers complete clarity on their spending."

So, do banks share transaction-level data with this abomination of a business??
Wasn't there laws about transaction-level data and privacy?

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Comments

  • Dollar General on 07/07/2025 - 19:42
    +2

    Experian are most likely making a load of assumptions mixed in with their credit reporting data and selling it off like collateral debt obligations onto banks

    • nuker on 07/07/2025 - 20:22

      i'm no expert, but "… 7 billion transactions per month" looks much more like transaction-level data, rather than "credit reporting data", whatever the latter means.

    • EightImmortals on 08/07/2025 - 06:50

      Sounds like an assumption to me. :)
      I doubt the banksters would rely on 'assumed' data over real data.

  • miwahni on 07/07/2025 - 21:26
    +3

    Experian owns Illion - BankStatements.com.au which is a tool used by brokers, via open banking, to pull bank statements when a lender requests them. Is it possible that Experian is tapping into the data gathered via Illion?
    Illion statements are great. They categorise transactions into groupings eg Salary, Loans, Groceries, Utilities, Gambling etc so you can quickly see where funds are going (seeing McDonalds under Dining Out always makes me laugh).
    Note that access needs to be given by the customer; broker can't just scrape the data willy nilly. They need logons etc. Then the statements work in much the same way as Pocketbook and Frollo, logging into accounts and uploading transactions into the statement. All part of the Open Banking legislation introduced in 2019. And I stress again - banks don't just share the information; it's done with explicit consent from the customer.

    • nuker on 07/07/2025 - 21:42
      -1

      And I stress again - banks don't just share the information; it's done with explicit consent from the customer

      Yes, but maybe Experian found a loophole around the consent thing and convinced banks that "it is fine". Loophole is this "Look Who’s Charging" feature. "Look, this is goood for consumers, they will know who has charged them!".
      To be clear, I'm talking about everyday's transaction-level data, not broker initiated sharing of bank statements, "7 billion transactions per month" kind of data.

    • EightImmortals on 08/07/2025 - 06:53

      "BankStatements.com.au which is a tool used by brokers, via open banking, to pull bank statements when a lender requests them."

      7 billion transactions per month is a lot of loan requests for a population of 25 million people.

      "banks don't just share the information; it's done with explicit consent from the customer."

      Not buried in a 1000 page 'terms of service' document?

      • miwahni on 08/07/2025 - 21:33

        Nope. Customer gets sent a link with instructions to click if they agree to the data being provided. Totally explicit consent. If they don't want to provide that access then they don't click and will need to provide their own statements. Or not, if they decide not to proceed.
        If you've ever waded through a 72-page three month statement of transactions, suddenly 7 billion a month doesn't seem that impossible.
        Still like to know if there is that link I surmised, between Experian's claims and the whole Illion thing.

  • trashcan on 07/07/2025 - 22:26
    +1

    The banks use the service to lookup the merchant details and then enrich the transaction with the details. No customer transaction data is passed to Experian.

    • nuker on 07/07/2025 - 22:49

      Or maybe more? (note the real-time stuff)
      Transaction Enrichment

      Improve the customer experience:
      Instant clarity on what, where and how much your customers are spending in real-time.

      Real-time transaction notifications:
      You can enable meaningful real-time transaction alerts for your customers to help them stay on track.

      Screenshot

      Real-time means bank pushes every transaction to Experian. Which amounts to full, real-time, transaction-level data sharing. Not only when user taps a transaction in the banking app.

      • czyk on 08/07/2025 - 11:27

        Just because the transaction data (name, cost, date) is passed to a third party, doesn't mean that that third party has any information to link it to an individual customer.

        My guess is that this product is just a simple database that maps EFTPOS business names to a name, image and category. Real-time doesn't necessarily mean Experian would have a constant feed of what Jane Doe is purchasing, it just means that NAB (for example) could query the API in real time to transform those business names into rich data.

  • nuker on 07/07/2025 - 23:55

    If I don't reply in next few days, I blame Experian for my death :)

  • EightImmortals on 08/07/2025 - 07:00
    -4

    Do you see the same message on the ING website or is it just a mobile app thing?

    Also FWIW ran your post through GPT:

    What This Really Means (Behind the Scenes)
    From a banking operations perspective:

    Banks share your transaction data (pseudonymised or not) with Experian for categorisation and enrichment.

    This categorised data can then feed into:

    Personal finance tools (like budget charts or alerts)

    Internal credit models (e.g. when assessing a loan application)

    Compliance checks, e.g. income/expense verification under responsible lending laws.

    What’s the Risk or Concern?
    Your concern is legitimate. The key issues here are:

    Data Privacy: Many users don’t realise that transaction-level data is passed to a third-party (Experian) — not just for labelling but possibly also for analytics tied to credit decisions.

    Consent & Transparency :While banks likely cover this in T&Cs or privacy policies, the average customer is unaware this enrichment might feed into affordability assessments.

    Profiling: If enriched transaction data is used to judge a customer’s loan eligibility or financial behaviour, it amounts to profiling — and customers deserve to know when that happens.

    Third-Party Risk Banks are entrusting a vast amount of sensitive data to a single vendor (Experian), raising questions about centralised data risk and potential misuse.

    Bottom Line

    Yes, ING and others use Experian’s LWC to label transactions.

    Yes, Experian offers broader analytics services that go far beyond just "cleaning up descriptions" — potentially including creditworthiness analysis.

    No, most customers are not fully aware of how deep this enrichment goes, or that it may influence lending or profiling.

    You are right to be critical — even if technically allowed under privacy terms, there's a gap in transparency that many banks still need to bridge.

  • HardQuiz on 08/07/2025 - 11:29

    I think NAB and BankWest use the same service.

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