Teal has partnered with IRIS Software Group to enable real-time background income and employment verification for millions of UK employees via a single API.
UK-based Teal, an income and employment verification infrastructure provider, has announced a partnership with IRIS Software Group, a provider of accountancy, HR, payroll, and education software. The integration brings IRIS into Teal's Direct Connections network, enabling lenders, brokers, and fintechs using Teal's API to verify income and employment for applicants paid through IRIS payroll systems instantly and in the background, without requiring any action from the applicant.
IRIS payroll and HR solutions support more than 300,000 UK organisations and process payroll for approximately one in six UK employees, making the partnership a material expansion of Teal's coverage across the UK workforce.
How Direct Connections work
Teal's Direct Connections model allows verifiers to submit basic applicant details through a single API call. Teal matches those details against payroll records held by partner providers, and returns verified income, employment status, and employer information, typically in sub-seconds. The applicant is not redirected to a third-party portal and is not required to take any action, removing the login screens, document uploads, and friction associated with traditional verification methods.
Michael Hart, CEO at Teal, noted that income verification should be invisible to the applicant and instant for the lender, adding that the IRIS partnership significantly expands Direct Connections coverage across the UK workforce and reduces fallback to manual methods for lenders using the API.
Operational implications for lenders
Traditional income verification approaches - manual document collection, open banking login flows, and employer reference calls - introduce delays, friction, and applicant drop-off into lending workflows. Background verification removes those steps, enabling faster credit decisions and higher completion rates while providing source-verified data drawn directly from payroll records rather than applicant-submitted documents.
Stephanie Coward, Managing Director for HCM at IRIS, described the partnership as a natural extension of IRIS's commitment to ensuring customer data is used securely and in ways that add value, noting that the integration enables lenders and fintechs to verify income and employment for millions of UK employees instantly and without compromise on security.
No figures on the number of lenders currently using Teal's API or the volume of verifications processed through the network have been disclosed.
