Each time I open my mail inbox, I am greeted with unsolicited offers of preapproved loans and credit cards. This is the unanimous experience of hundreds of my relatives and friends. It is not as if such audacious overtures are coming only from fintech firms and small banks alone. Big state-owned banks as well as the private sector biggies also throw their hats in the ring in the race for one-upmanship when it comes to granting loans, the main bread-and-butter activity of financial institutions. Your inbox is flooded with unsolicited offers because banks and digital lenders purchase consumer data profiles or run pre-screening algorithms through credit bureaus. If you have a good credit score, maintain an active banking/salary account, or have searched for financial products, you are flagged as a prime target. To be sure, some of them land in your spam folders; that hardly deters the indefatigable wooers, as it costs very little to access the email addresses of potential neo-converts to consumerism.

How Your Data Is Used

Credit bureaus frequently compile lists of consumers who meet specific credit criteria and sell this aggregated data to banks to solicit you with "firm offers". Likewise, whenever you fill out a simple web form, check your credit score, or click on a personal loan offer in a banking app, you inadvertently fall into the trap—your information is often added to targeted marketing pools. Many of these emails originate from financial aggregator platforms (like BankBazaar or Paisabazaar),........

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