By Townhall Chicago News Staff
Chicago-based TransUnion on Monday launched what it called the first-ever adverse-actionable credit scores designed to combat synthetic identity fraud and credit washing, two of the fastest-growing forms of financial crime.
The new Credit Washing and Synthetic Fraud Scores allow lenders to make more informed credit decisions while providing consumers with reason codes explaining why they were denied credit, according to the company’s Oct. 20 news release. Previously, no such explainable tools existed for these fraud categories.
“Synthetic identity fraud and credit washing present unique challenges because they can conceal risk behind seemingly legitimate consumer profiles,” James Garvert, executive vice president of global fraud and communications solutions at TransUnion, said in the release. “By bringing advanced fraud intelligence into explainable, FCRA-governed decisioning, we’re helping organizations uncover threats that might otherwise go undetected, make more confident decisions, and mitigate potential financial losses.”
TransUnion research estimates total lender exposure to synthetic identity fraud at $2.4 billion as of June 2026, according to the release. Synthetic identity fraud involves combining real and fabricated identity elements to create seemingly legitimate consumer profiles that can evade traditional detection methods.
Credit washing, the practice of suppressing legitimate negative credit data from credit reports, poses a separate but related threat. TransUnion analysis shows consumers whose charge-offs were suppressed through credit washing are 3.5 times more likely to charge off a new account within a year of opening it. Among super prime consumers, that figure rises to 10 times more likely, the company said.
Oscilar, an agentic risk platform for financial institutions headquartered in Palo Alto, California, is the first platform to integrate the new scores. Within Oscilar’s system, the scores and their reason codes run alongside credit decisions in a single workflow, allowing lenders to act on risk at account opening.
“A fraud score only pays off if the lender can act on it,” Neha Narkhede, co-founder and CEO of Oscilar, said in the release. “TransUnion’s adverse-actionable scores give lenders a reason they can cite, and Oscilar puts that reason on the same decision and notice as the credit reasons.”
Narkhede said the integration eliminates the need for separate fraud and credit systems. “Every signal a lender trusts belongs on one view of the customer, so a risk the fraud team sees today shapes the credit decision tomorrow,” she said.
The new scores draw on TransUnion’s data assets, advanced analytics and identity intelligence to help organizations identify threats earlier and mitigate potential losses before they occur, according to the company. Oscilar supports end-to-end risk management across onboarding, credit, fraud and anti-money laundering workflows for more than 100 financial institutions.
TransUnion, listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker TRU, employs more than 13,000 people operating in more than 30 countries. The company is headquartered in Chicago.
The launch comes as fraud tactics continue to evolve, with fraudsters using increasingly sophisticated methods to build seemingly legitimate credit profiles and obtain loans and credit lines.
