Block said on September 1, 2026, that it will open its Cash App Score to outside lenders for the first time, with Nova Credit as its distribution partner. The score, until now used only inside Cash App, will be available for underwriting in credit cards, auto lending, device financing, personal lending, and tenant screening.
For lenders, the deal offers a cash flow signal on consumers that bureau-based scores tend to miss. Block says roughly 70% of active users of Cash App Borrow, its in-app lending product, have a FICO score below 580, and that the score lets it approve 38% more of them at the same loss rate.
The score reads cash flow, not credit history
The Cash App Score draws on activity inside the app: spending, saving, repayment behavior, paycheck deposits, and peer-to-peer payments. A conventional credit score, by contrast, rests on outstanding balances and on the delinquencies reported to credit bureaus. The two differ in both their inputs and their pace. Cash flow can be observed day to day, while a credit history takes years to build.
Nova Credit supplies the reporting rails
Nova Credit brings three things Block lacks: consumer-reporting infrastructure, a compliance framework under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and an established network of lenders. The score will travel through Nova Credit’s Cash Flow Intelligence Platform, so lenders do not need a dedicated integration. FCRA compliance is more than a formality. It governs the rights consumers have over the data used to decide on their credit, including the right to access it and to dispute it.
Consumers decide in the app who sees their score
Cash App customers choose whether to share their score and with whom. The app handles notifications and consent, and no third-party login is required. That setup avoids credential sharing, a method still common in account data access that leaves consumers bearing the risk of handing over their bank logins.
- Consumers provide no new credentials
- Sharing preferences are set inside Cash App
- Lenders access the score through a platform they are already connected to
- The FCRA framework governs how the data flows
Borrow results may not carry over to other loan books
The published performance figures come from Cash App’s own lending product. Seven in 10 active Borrow users have a FICO score below 580, a level that shuts them out of mainstream credit under most US lenders’ policies. On that population, Block says it approves 38% more customers at an unchanged loss rate. The result holds for that product and those borrowers. For auto loans and credit cards, Block offers only projections, of 30% and 28% more approvals respectively, and it has published nothing on tenant screening.
Juan Hernandez, head of credit and underwriting at Block, framed the deal around consumers putting their own records to work: “At Block, we believe people should be able to use their own financial history to unlock opportunity, on their terms.” The two companies said they would present the partnership in more detail at the Cash Flow Intelligence Summit in New York on September 10, 2026.