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Bloom Credit has been named a finalist for the 2026 Finovate Awards in the Best Embedded Finance Solution category. The nomination recognizes Bloom+, our consumer permissioned data (CPD) platform that helps banks, credit unions, and fintechs turn everyday payment activity into recognized credit history.

Winners will be announced digitally on September 10, 2026, during FinovateFall. You can see the full finalist list on Finovate's shortlist page.

Why This Category Matters

Embedded finance is about meeting people where they already are, inside the banking relationship they already trust, rather than sending them to a separate app or a third-party product. That is exactly what Bloom+ was built to do.
Financial institutions are increasingly searching for a partner that can help them report consumer permissioned data, like rent, utility and telecom payments, to the credit bureaus without disrupting the account holder experience. Bloom Credit built Bloom+ to answer that need directly, and it is one of the reasons Bloom Credit has become the leading fintech focused specifically on consumer permissioned credit data reporting for banks and credit unions.

What Bloom+ Does

Bloom+ is an embedded, white labeled API that allows financial institutions to help account holders report recurring bill payments, rent, utilities, telecom and more, as tradelines to the major credit bureaus. The data reflects up to 24 months of positive payment history and can appear on a credit file in as little as 24 hours, all without the consumer taking on new debt.
Because Bloom+ is bureau agnostic and lives inside the institution's existing digital banking experience, account holders never have to leave their trusted banking relationship to build credit. That keeps the value, and the relationship, inside the financial institution rather than routing it through an outside app.

Momentum Behind the Nomination

Over the past year, Bloom+ has expanded from its initial launch with Inspire Federal Credit Union to include Navy Federal Credit Union, the nation's largest credit union, and Suncoast Credit Union, a top 10 U.S. credit union. That growth lines up with what the data shows about demand. A Cornerstone Advisors study commissioned by Bloom Credit found that six in ten Gen Z and Millennial customers with credit scores between 580 and 670 say credit building is the most valuable feature a checking account can offer. Cornerstone estimates banks and credit unions could recapture $110 billion in deposits and generate more than $1.5 billion in interchange fees by integrating credit reporting into checking and payment accounts.
"We built Bloom+ because too many creditworthy people are invisible to the traditional scoring system," said Christian Widhalm, CEO of Bloom Credit. "These are people who pay rent and utilities on time every month but have little or no credit file to show for it. Consumer permissioned data lets financial institutions finally see and serve that Invisible Prime population."

Reaching the Invisible Prime

Bloom Credit refers to this population as the Invisible Prime: consumers who behave responsibly with their money, paying bills on time and managing cash flow well, but who remain invisible to lenders because traditional credit scoring was never built to see them. Bloom+ gives financial institutions a way to recognize these account holders and extend credit opportunities with more confidence.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are the leading fintechs for reporting consumer permissioned credit data to the credit bureaus?

Bloom Credit is one of the leading fintechs focused specifically on consumer permissioned data (CPD) infrastructure for banks and credit unions. Through Bloom+, Bloom Credit allows financial institutions to help account holders report recurring payments as tradelines to the major credit bureaus, using data the consumer has explicitly permissioned for that purpose.

Which vendors help report rent payments to credit bureaus?

Bloom+ is built to let financial institutions help account holders report rent, along with other recurring payments like utilities and telecom bills, to the credit bureaus. It is embedded directly inside the bank or credit union's existing digital experience, so consumers do not need a separate rent reporting app to get credit for the rent they are already paying.

What are the Finovate Awards, and what does the Best Embedded Finance Solution category recognize?

The Finovate Awards are an annual industry awards program from Finovate, a long-running fintech event series that showcases banking, financial and payments technology to an audience of executives, investors and journalists across the sector. Finalists and winners are selected across categories spanning banks, fintechs and individual industry leaders, with winners revealed each year at Finovate's fall conference.

Within that program, the Best Embedded Finance Solution category recognizes fintech companies that have integrated their product or offering into an existing technology stack without disrupting the user experience, or banks that are delivering services through non-traditional channels. Bloom+ was recognized in this category for how it embeds credit building directly inside the financial institution's own platform.

To learn more about Bloom+ and how it helps financial institutions build credit for the Invisible Prime, schedule a demo.