Block, Inc. has announced that it will open the Cash App Score to external lenders for the first time, with Nova Credit serving as a distribution partner. Under the partnership, Cash App's proprietary, cash flow-based credit score will be made available to lenders through Nova Credit's Cash Flow Intelligence Platform, embedding it directly into the underwriting workflows lenders already use, with no new consumer credentialing required. The move positions Block alongside a broader industry shift toward cash flow-based underwriting, in which lenders supplement traditional bureau data with transaction-level insights to evaluate borrowers — an approach that has gained traction as fintechs and consumer-reporting firms seek alternatives to decades-old scoring models.

Cash App Score, which has begun rolling out to customers, draws on millions of real-time, first-party signals from across the Cash App ecosystem — including spending, saving, repayment behavior, paycheck deposits, and peer-to-peer activity — to form a detailed, near real-time picture of a person's financial health. Unlike traditional credit scores, Cash App Score does not look back exclusively at credit history; instead, it reflects a customer's broader financial behavior, encompassing both historical and current activities and capturing changes in near real-time. That distinction matters for the large share of U.S. consumers who have thin credit files or no FICO score at all — a population long difficult for conventional lenders to evaluate.

Within Cash App, customers can view their score on the Money Tab, understand what drives it, and take concrete steps to improve it. Early engagement has been strong: within 30 days, 55.1 percent of customers return to check their score. Customers will set their own preferences for whether and how their score is shared with third-party lending partners, with Cash App managing notifications and consent directly and no third-party logins required.

"At Block, we believe people should be able to use their own financial history to unlock opportunity, on their terms," said Juan Hernandez, Head of Credit and Underwriting at Block. "We built Cash App Score to see the financial activity of millions of people the traditional credit system misses, and it's now the same technology at the center of how we manage credit across Block, where we use it to understand risk in near real-time. Partnering with Nova Credit lets us put that capability in the hands of lenders through infrastructure they already trust, so more of those consumers can be reached responsibly, while they stay informed and in control of their data."

The technology behind Cash App Score powers underwriting across all of Block's consumer lending products. In Cash App Borrow, where the technology has been running longest, it approves 38 percent more customers at the same loss rate compared with traditional credit scores. Roughly 70 percent of active Borrow customers have FICO scores below 580 — the population conventional models underserve — at a target repayment rate. Block's analysis across additional categories indicates the potential to approve 30 percent more auto loans and 28 percent more credit card applications at comparable loss rates versus traditional methods.

The technology does more than assess individual creditworthiness: it tracks consumer financial health in aggregate and in near real-time, giving Block a continuous read on how macroeconomic conditions are affecting its portfolio. This allows Block to model scenarios and adjust credit policy dynamically rather than relying on lagging indicators. For lenders, this means the Cash App Score is not a static signal — it is built on infrastructure that continuously adapts to economic conditions, the same infrastructure Block relies on to manage its own portfolio.

A richer view for lenders, across verticals

Through Nova Credit's network, lenders will be able to incorporate the Cash App Score into their underwriting across verticals including credit cards, auto lending, device financing, personal lending, and tenant screening — all areas where Cash App does not compete — delivered through the same Cash Flow Intelligence Platform they rely on today. Notably, extending the score into tenant screening and other non-credit verticals expands the reach of cash flow data beyond lending decisions, a use case consumer-reporting firms have developed in recent years. The Cash App Score will provide lenders with a comprehensive, near real-time view of a consumer's ability to pay. Used alongside Nova Credit's Cash Atlas, lenders will gain an additional layer of cash flow context through a single integration.

Beyond distribution, Nova Credit brings deep experience deploying cash flow-based scores, along with the consumer-reporting infrastructure, FCRA-compliance framework, and established lender network that together turn a powerful score into a solution lenders can adopt with confidence. That FCRA compliance is significant: as a consumer-reporting framework under federal law, it governs how consumer data is used in credit decisions and provides the regulatory footing lenders require before adopting a new score.

"By bringing the Cash App Score into Nova Credit's Cash Flow Intelligence Platform, we're giving lenders a unique tool to develop a richer, near real-time view of tens of millions of credit-seeking Americans," said Misha Esipov, Co-founder and CEO of Nova Credit. "Our joint goal is to help Americans put their best financial foot forward, using the apps they already rely on every day."