Article 86 — customers can demand an explanation of AI-backed credit decisions

Article 86 of the EU AI Act gives an affected person the right to a clear, meaningful explanation from the deployer. It applies when a decision rests on output from an Annex III high-risk AI system (except critical-infrastructure systems in point 2). The decision must produce legal effects, or similarly significant effects that the person sees as harming their health, safety, or fundamental rights.

The explanation must cover two points. First, the AI system’s role in the decision procedure. Second, the main elements of the decision taken.

For banks and other lenders, Annex III point 5(b) creditworthiness and credit-scoring tools sit in scope. A refusal or tightened limit based on that output can trigger the right. The duty sits on you as deployer. It applies only where other Union law does not already provide the same right. Union or national law can also narrow it in specific cases.

Practical step: wire a request-and-reply path into complaints and adverse-action workflows before Annex III high-risk duties apply on 2 December 2027.