Update: Credit tracker is now available exclusively as part of our Monzo Plus account. You can learn more about Monzo Plus here.
We’re really excited to let you know that we’ve been working on showing you your credit score right inside the Monzo app!
You’ll be able to see your score in just a few taps – no need to fill out any long forms. We’ll explain what your score could mean, in plain English, and we’ll give you some tips on what you could do to improve or maintain it.
It’s almost ready – we’ll introduce this to your Monzo apps over the next few months.
Credit scores help track your borrowing health
Credit scores are a useful indication of how banks and other lenders view you. They’re one of the factors lenders might take into account when you're applying for credit cards, loans, phone contracts or rental agreements.
They’re put together by credit reference agencies (CRAs), who ask banks, local authorities and other companies you may have borrowed money from for information about you. Once they’ve got enough information, they assign you a score based on what they’ve learned. In turn, lenders sometimes use the information CRAs have gathered, as well as a few other factors (we’ll explain below), to help them make decisions about whether to lend you money. The kinds of things that have an impact on your score are:
Your history of paying back money on loans, overdrafts and credit cards
How much money you’ve borrowed in the past
How much you’ve applied to borrow
How much credit you’re using at the moment
Knowing your score might not feel important now. But understanding what goes into your score, and how to maintain or improve it over time, will improve your chances of borrowing in the future. That’s both how much money you might be approved for, and the rates you’ll get on things like car loans and mortgages.
Discover your score, and understand what it actually means
Some of you have told us that you don’t know what credit scores mean, why they’re relevant or what they could actually affect – so we’re really excited to start showing your score and what it could mean for you.
There’s no need to fill out any long forms to see your score – you’ll be able to see it in a few taps.
We’ll show you your score, what it actually means, and give you tips that could help you improve it.
There isn’t one credit score, there are many – and we’ll show you TransUnion’s
Lots of people think that there’s one universal credit score – which isn’t actually true! Different banks and companies work with different credit reference agencies, for lots of different reasons.
There are three main credit reference agencies in the UK – TransUnion, Experian and Equifax, and banks will generally report to some, but not all, of the reference agencies. We report to TransUnion and Experian. We also use data from TransUnion and Experian to help us make decisions about who we can responsibly lend money to (for our overdrafts and loans). The score you see in your app comes from TransUnion.
Credit scores aren’t the only factor in deciding whether you’ll be able to borrow money – but they’re a good indicator
Banks use lots of different factors when they decide whether or not to lend you money or offer you a credit card – and not every bank is the same. They’ll use information given to them by credit reference agencies, but also what they can tell about you from their own information (like your transaction history, and whether you’ve paid them back for things before) and from what you tell them (like what your income is, and if you have any dependants, for example). So a credit score won’t ever be the full picture, and a good score isn’t a guarantee of anything.
But credit scores are great to give you a general sense of how lenders see you. A low score could mean less access to things like credit cards or mortgages, and a high score means you could get better deals and access to more money. So it’s definitely worth keeping a close eye on your score – and doing what you can to try and improve it.
We’re rolling this out slowly over the next few months
We’ve got some work to do before we can show everyone their score – but we’re close! Starting in March, we’ll be slowly introducing credit scores to your Monzo app. We’ll let you know when it’s available for you, if you’re already a Monzo customer.