ClearScore acquires Acre to accelerate mortgage push
ClearScore, the British financial marketplace known for its credit and insurance comparison tools, has acquired fellow London-based mortgage technology provider Acre Platforms in a move designed to deepen its presence in home lending. The deal adds a broker-focused customer relationship management platform and new mortgage data capabilities to ClearScore’s existing marketplace, which has historically been strongest in unsecured credit broking.
The acquisition follows ClearScore’s purchase of Aro Finance in early 2025, a transaction that expanded the group’s secured lending capabilities. Together, the two deals signal a broader strategy: using acquisitions to build a full-stack pathway from consumer discovery and eligibility checks to broker distribution and lender integration across multiple credit categories.
CEO: combining fintech infrastructure with broker technology
Justin Basini, co-founder and CEO of ClearScore, said the addition of Acre strengthens the group’s ability to compete in mortgages by combining consumer reach and data with intermediary tooling.
“Acre is a great addition to the ClearScore Group, and we will support the business on its exciting growth trajectory,” Basini said. He pointed to ClearScore’s brand scale, “user-permissioned data at scale,” and what he described as one of the industry’s most advanced fintech technology stacks. “Combine that with Acre’s leading CRM platform for intermediaries, and you have an exciting set of technology platforms, data assets and APIs spanning unsecured credit, auto finance and now mortgages,” he added.
Why mortgages, and why now?
The move comes amid continued activity across mortgage and housing-finance fintech, where both venture funding and consolidation are shaping the competitive landscape. In 2025, Madrid-based Libeen raised €25 million to scale a “Smarthousing” model aimed at lowering barriers to home ownership in Spain through alternative financing structures supported by technology. Valencia-based Colibid, positioned as a digital mortgage marketplace connecting borrowers, banks and brokers through a bidding-style process, has raised about €0.5 million to date to support product development and market entry.
Against that backdrop, ClearScore’s decision to buy, rather than invest in, a mortgage specialist reflects a parallel trend: larger fintech platforms expanding into mortgages by acquiring infrastructure and distribution capabilities, while earlier-stage specialists continue to raise venture rounds to prove out their models.
Building on 2025 momentum and prior financing
ClearScore also enters this next phase after securing €36.1 million in debt financing from HSBC Innovation Banking UK roughly a year ago. While the company did not disclose financial terms for the Acre acquisition, it framed the deal as a way to accelerate growth in a segment that saw strong momentum in 2025.
“This perfectly complements our successful push into the secured loans market, building on the significant growth we have seen in our home lending business in 2025,” Basini said. “The acquisition allows us to accelerate our mortgage strategy with Acre technology powering our home lending business and helping us deliver compelling new experiences for our users.”
How the combined platform is expected to work
ClearScore says it serves more than 25 million users globally, matching consumers to products such as credit cards, personal loans and car finance using credit and affordability data, including credit reports and open banking inputs. The company also operates API integrations with financial institutions, and says it has more than 200 partner relationships worldwide.
With Acre inside the group, ClearScore plans to route mortgage demand from its consumer base into Acre’s broker ecosystem, effectively linking front-end consumer acquisition with intermediary distribution. The integration is also expected to increase the amount of property, mortgage and affordability data available across the group, which could improve eligibility insights and product matching for prospective homebuyers.
ClearScore compared its ambitions for Acre to D•One, its open banking service for lenders, which it says has become an “integral layer” of the credit ecosystem. The aim is for Acre to play a similar role in mortgages—providing a technology layer that connects brokers and lenders while feeding data back into the marketplace experience.
Acre to continue serving brokers under new ownership
Founded in 2018, Acre positions itself as a technology platform built to modernize the mortgage process for consumers and brokers, with an emphasis on speed, transparency and cost reduction. Justus Brown, CEO of Acre, said the acquisition offers a path to scale the platform’s reach and capabilities.
“Our mission has always been to simplify the mortgage journey, taking the pain out of the process so that consumers can get into their homes quicker,” Brown said. He added that Acre’s data-driven approach has helped transform broker workflows in the UK, and that joining ClearScore will help accelerate its ambition to become a leading technology platform for the mortgage industry.
Under ClearScore’s ownership, Acre will continue to provide technology solutions for mortgage and protection businesses. The combined group plans to focus first on meeting demand from ClearScore’s UK user base—reported at 16 million—before extending the mortgage platform into ClearScore’s operations in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
What to watch next
Execution will hinge on how quickly ClearScore can integrate Acre’s broker CRM and data layer into its existing marketplace flows, and whether the combined offering improves conversion for lender partners while delivering a smoother consumer journey. If successful, the acquisition could position ClearScore as a more comprehensive financial marketplace—one that spans unsecured credit, auto finance and mortgages through a blend of consumer-scale distribution and intermediary infrastructure.
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