Nationwide credit card, decline or acceptance?

BugsyBrowne

Farside wrote: »

No i only paid Experian for one months subscription and the score comes free with it along with all the other stuff

For £14.99 I'm sure the score wasn't free.

Farside

izools wrote: »

It's just pointless. You come across the sort of person who could be beaten around the head with the truth from morning 'till night and still stick to your guns... The sort of person who would have someone stick a gun to their head and carry on talking despite being told to be quiet by the gunman because "you know you're right".

You know me well lad

rb10

izools wrote: »

I'd like to think we're pretty much in agreement on this but perhaps phrased things differently?

I'd like to think so too, but I'm not 100% convinced that we are...!

There are two different services from Experian that we have here.

The first is Experian's assistance in building a scorecard to assess applicants.

The second is the provision of an individual's credit score to a bank. By 'credit score', I mean an individual's main credit score (known as 'Delphi'), or another score provided by Experian to a bank. Different scores will give, for example, the probability of the customer defaulting within 12 months, or a measure of over-indebtedness, etc.

I hope that we are in agreement so far.

The credit score that Experian makes available to an individual isn't one of the specific scores that are provided to banks, but essentially an amalgamation of them. That's why this score can sometimes give unexpected results - it's really trying to cram too much into one number. Thus, this score isn't provided to banks - they use the more specific individual scores.

When a bank receives an application for credit, they'll put the application through a scorecard. This can either be one they've built themselves, or one built with Experian's assistance - it makes no difference, it works in the same way. Either way, they will tend to take the 'Delphi' score, plus one or more other scores provided by Experian, plus a number of other factors from the report, application, or demographic statistics.

Whilst different banks build their calculations on the same foundations, they will give different weights to the different factors that are considered, and will have different cut-off points.

The same is true of Equifax. (Also, I assume, Callcredit, but I have no first-hand experience there).

droiderm

Your making a huge assumption that all lenders who use Experian, use that product.

rb10

droiderm wrote: »

Your making a huge assumption that all lenders who use Experian, use that product.

I've never heard of a lender that does this.

Admittedly there may be some that work in this way - it's a good point.

droiderm

Anyhow that's really useful insight.
Would love to know more detail though. How the Delphi score actually works for the different products (credit cards/loans/mortgages)

Hunterz1_2

Oh thanks guys for bringing this topic, off topic. Many thanks...

























but seriously, very interesting, I don't mind as I've been accepted!

izools

Yep, agree with absolutely everything.

rb10 wrote: »

Either way, they will tend to take the 'Delphi' score, plus one or more other scores provided by Experian, plus a number of other factors from the report, application, or demographic statistics

This is a very important point.

The decision making process a lender makes is based on far more information that just an applicant's credit files. There is a lot of information a credit reference agency doesn't hold about an applicant, that is absolutely paramount when making lending decisions. The sort of information CreditExpert doesn't take in to account when generating your "Score". Information like:

• Salary
• Time with employer
• Type of employment
• Time with bank
• Time at current address
• Relationship status
• Residential status

You may find that Applicant A has:

£30,000 salary
Ten years with employer
Permanent employment
Ten years with bank
Ten years at current address
Married
Homeowner

But he has a less than perfect credit history. His delphi score may be lower than Applicant B, who has:

£20,000 salary
One year with employer
Temporary employment
One year with bank
Six months at current address
Single
Renting

Applicant B, however, has a much higher CreditExpert score and a much higher Delphi score, because he's never missed a payment on anything ever.

Appliant A is still the lower risk and may still be given higher limits, lower rates, and better facilities due to his stable circumstances, which aren't taken into account when calculating a CreditExpert score.

Farside

Hunterz1 wrote: »

Oh thanks guys for bringing this topic, off topic. Many thanks...

























but seriously, very interesting, I don't mind as I've been accepted!

I did try to get it back on topic for you, but.... haha


Congratulations anyway :beer:

rb10

droiderm wrote: »

Anyhow that's really useful insight.
Would love to know more detail though. How the Delphi score actually works for the different products (credit cards/loans/mortgages)

Delphi is a single credit score for you as in individual. It's calculated monthly by Experian, and does not relate to a specific product that you apply for.

It's the way that the bank has calibrated their internal scorecard that decides whether you are accepted for a credit card/loan/mortgage etc.

I don't know how the Delphi score is calculated (having never worked for Experian).

Since the details of the scorecards used by banks are confidential, I'm sure you'll appreciate that I cannot give out too much information on how they accept/decline your application.

Hunterz1 wrote: »

Oh thanks guys for bringing this topic, off topic. Many thanks...

My apologies!

Hunterz1 wrote: »

but seriously, very interesting, I don't mind as I've been accepted!

That's good news! It's a good card.

izools wrote: »

This is a very important point.

The decision making process a lender makes is based on far more information that just an applicant's credit files. There is a lot of information a credit reference agency doesn't hold about an applicant, that is absolutely paramount when making lending decisions. The sort of information CreditExpert doesn't take in to account when generating your "Score". Information like:

• Salary
• Time with employer
• Type of employment
• Time with bank
• Time at current address
• Relationship status
• Residential status

You may find that Applicant A has:

£30,000 salary
Ten years with employer
Permanent employment
Ten years with bank
Ten years at current address
Married
Homeowner

But he has a less than perfect credit history. His delphi score may be lower than Applicant B, who has:

£20,000 salary
One year with employer
Temporary employment
One year with bank
Six months at current address
Single
Renting

Applicant B, however, has a much higher CreditExpert score and a much higher Delphi score, because he's never missed a payment on anything ever.

Appliant A is still the lower risk and may still be given higher limits, lower rates, and better facilities due to his stable circumstances, which aren't taken into account when calculating a CreditExpert score.

That's a really good point. It's just worth noting that lenders are starting to realise that it's often the more financially astute (which generally correlates with lower risk) who tend to switch bank accounts, so are not attaching a great (if any) weight to the 'time with bank' metric. It's no longer a good way of predicting someone's creditworthiness.

And for unsecured products, where bank statements, payslips etc are not generally provided, the other attributes you list (other than time at address) are not used particularly much either, because of the risk of false information being entered. There's no way to verify this data to be correct, so it's largely ignored. The general point you make still stands, and certainly holds for mortgages.