The European regulation on artificial intelligence (AI Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) classifies AI systems by risk level. Credit scoring is included, but first for individuals. Here is what actually applies to company scoring.
What the regulation says
Annex III, point 5(b), classifies as "high-risk" the AI systems intended to evaluate the creditworthiness of natural persons or establish their credit score, except for fraud detection. These systems must notably comply with:
- a risk management system;
- data quality requirements;
- technical documentation and logging of operations;
- effective human oversight;
- clear information for users.
Companies are not covered as such
Point 5(b) refers to natural persons. Assessing a limited company therefore does not, on that basis, fall into the "high-risk" category.
The case of sole traders
A sole trader or micro-entrepreneur is a natural person: assessing their creditworthiness may fall under point 5(b). GDPR already applies: its Article 22 governs decisions based solely on automated processing that produce legal effects or similarly significant effects. If your portfolio includes sole traders, have your use reviewed by your legal adviser.
The timetable
The "omnibus" regulation (EU) 2026/1744, published in the Official Journal of the EU on 24 July 2026, postponed to 2 December 2027 the application of the obligations for Annex III high-risk systems, originally set for 2 August 2026.
Why explainability still matters in B2B
Even outside the "high-risk" scope, a score you cannot explain is hard to defend in front of a declined customer, a credit committee, an auditor or an insurer. Three good practices:
- Know which factors move the score: accounting, banking, legal, extra-financial.
- Keep the report used at the time of the decision.
- Leave the final decision to a person for borderline or sensitive files.
What RocketFin provides
Each RocketFin score is calculated in as little as 60 seconds on more than 100 data points, split between accounting, banking, legal and extra-financial data. It comes with an explainable PDF report that you can keep on file. The decision remains yours.
This article is general information and does not constitute legal advice.