Your payment habits now to appear on credit files

yorkie1980

Your payment habits now to appear on credit files

Banks are set to share more of your personal information with each other, in an attempt to spot early signs of financial difficulty.
In addition to the data they already share, which includes how you manage your credit accounts and the amount of credit you have available, they are also going to start identifying customers who only make the minimum payment each month, as well as people who use their credit card to withdraw cash.
The move, which has been welcomed by the UK’s payment association APACS, is likely to affect around 3.5 million cardholders who make only minimum payments. Our own research has found that around 3% of card holders withdraw cash regularly, with a further 28% admitting to having done so very occasionally.
These new data sharing proposals are due to come into effect by the end of this year, but the core components of your credit file – namely how you have paid your credit accounts in the past and whether you are on the Electoral Roll – remain key in any application you might make.



Hi guys, just received this email from checkmyfile, thought it might be of interest. Sorry if it's been posted elsewhere. Cheers, yorkie

nzseries1

I'd heard about that, I thought that they already reported when you withdrew cash from your credit card.

yorkie1980 wrote: »

with a further 28% admitting to having [withdrew cash] very occasionally.

This quote shocks me a bit... didn't think it would be that high!

louiser123

i have to admit i have withdrawn cash from my card, i appreciate that there is interest on it from withdrawl but im happy to pay that for the priveledge of being able to withdraw some if tight before payday. i pay off infull every month and have thought the interest is minimal really, after all it is a service and a loan, no one seems to bat an eyelid if you take out a loan and pay interest.
on another note i think its getting very silly it like big brother is watchin all the time, i find it a bit unnerving to say the least when you actually think how much info people do have about you, i would still have thought that the conduct of the accounts eg payed on time ect is more important, after all the credit cards have the facilitys to do all the above pay minimum, or full withdraw or not withdraw so people are only using a service provided with the product. im not entirelly happy about everything i do being monitred and wathced then a judgment being made as to my financiall standing which could be very wrong to the one they think i have!!

calibrax

louiser123 wrote: »

if tight before payday

That's exactly the bit that the credit companies are interested in. If you are drawing cash regularly from a CC because you're short before payday, then lending you more money could push you over the edge and into a debt spiral.

Kavanne

God damnit now I will never get a new credit card... I always pay off in full!! But at the moment the payment sometimes doesn't make it by experian's cut off so looks like I am leaving a balance... with this system I can't fool them!

anna42hmr

Kavanne wrote: »

God damnit now I will never get a new credit card... I always pay off in full!! But at the moment the payment sometimes doesn't make it by experian's cut off so looks like I am leaving a balance... with this system I can't fool them!

i was thinking that too, as i always pay mine in full (unless its on 0% deal etc) this may lead to cards rejecting people if they know they arent going to make a lot of money out of them

PROLIANT

Not worried, next they will have a copy of your Tesco shopping list published on Experian, they need to worry about their own financial status before they go all analytical on Joe consumer.

londonuk2008

I agree with this , its getting really 'big brother' - whilst I can understand there has to be systems in place I feel that the CRA's are getting too big and are holding a lot more info - not always correct and not always easy to have corrected!

bert&ernie

I think that it will take a while for this to become common among all lenders in the UK. In order to get the data, the lender needs to provided it - reciprocity rules. Its also likely that the lender will need to upgrade to the latest generation of bureau data services in order to receive the data in a usable format - these with older systems will miss out for now. CRA's don't do much for free!

Despite the spin from APACS I'd bet that this has more to do with identifying gamers than "responsible lending".

Good piece in the Register about this.

Proliants comment about CRAs having your tesco shopping list is interesting. This level of data is actually a selling point for commercial payment cards! Not all merchants can provide it, but there is certainly the infrastructure for schemes, issuers and their corporate customers to process it.

lynxptc

So people that only make minimum payments on cards with 0% offers on them (which you should be doing) - will lenders consider those people as being in financial difficulty just because they are taking full advantage of the offer?

taless

Lynxptc, there is a column in the 'new' credit report that will show up as "In promotional period" - so I guess no, not really.