Compare the Market Credit Card finder - Bang on credit limits shown in soft search results.

DullGreyGuy

Nasqueron said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Nasqueron said:

vacheron said:

Just wanted to post this for the benefit of other stoozers out there. 

Normally I tend to use MSE, Uswitch, Money Supermarket etc. when I come to search for new BT cards, however this time one of the companies that came up was Compare The Market,

I did a search using all 4 companies, and Compare the Market came back with far more pre approved offers with 0% bt and 0% fees than the others. 

However, the main standout feature for me, which I have personally never seen before, was that the credit limit was stated in the search results for each card. 

I subsequently applied for 3 of the cards from their results, and after formally submitting my applications (and the resulting hard search from each lender), all 3 applications were approved with exactly the credit limits which Compare the Marked stated in their search results.

I think this is a great feature as i'm sure many on here have had the unfortunate experience of having to formally apply first only to find after acceptance that you have been offered some paltry credit limit at the cost of a hard search. So this looks a very useful and reliable way of avoiding this in the future.
 

It might be useful but equally, it's not a "feature" as such - Compare The Market can only guess at what lenders will offer and have no control over what you get, it is essentially a good guess by them

I think that some comparison are actually starting to talk to the providers rather than using their own random number generator. ClearScore with some lenders have their "guarantee" on acceptance, APR and amount. 

Interestingly a while back did a check with them for a loan and Zopa came back with the most favourable APR. Did a soft check in the Zopa website and it also came back as something they'd approve but with a much higher APR. Proceeded via the aggregators link and it was approved and did come in at the lower APR. 

Either that was an extraordinary guess or there is some level of integration and communication.

I had a 100% guaranteed acceptance from this site for a Virgin card that instead went to manual review and was rejected, it's just one of those things. I doubt the CRAs or comparison sites are going to be given the sort of data that lenders use for selection criteria as it'd inevitably leak and be used to game the system or other lenders would use it to beat quotes. ClearScore perhaps have an agreement for loan rates with certain lenders as a promo to get more loans in return for commission like the cashback sites do

"This site" as in MSE or ClearScore? 

MSE say your chances of being accepted, they dont "guarantee" it unlike ClearScore, though the guarantee is a chocolate teapot and is still subject to lender. What is accurate however is their APRs and Limits 

It doesnt mean they have to be sharing data, aggregators for insurance dont know the rating factors for most the insurers but instead an API call is made to the insurers servers who return a price. In principle there is no reason why lenders couldn't work the same way returning a limit and APR.

In my case neither the APRs offered were the headline rate

Nasqueron

DullGreyGuy said:

Nasqueron said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Nasqueron said:

vacheron said:

Just wanted to post this for the benefit of other stoozers out there. 

Normally I tend to use MSE, Uswitch, Money Supermarket etc. when I come to search for new BT cards, however this time one of the companies that came up was Compare The Market,

I did a search using all 4 companies, and Compare the Market came back with far more pre approved offers with 0% bt and 0% fees than the others. 

However, the main standout feature for me, which I have personally never seen before, was that the credit limit was stated in the search results for each card. 

I subsequently applied for 3 of the cards from their results, and after formally submitting my applications (and the resulting hard search from each lender), all 3 applications were approved with exactly the credit limits which Compare the Marked stated in their search results.

I think this is a great feature as i'm sure many on here have had the unfortunate experience of having to formally apply first only to find after acceptance that you have been offered some paltry credit limit at the cost of a hard search. So this looks a very useful and reliable way of avoiding this in the future.
 

It might be useful but equally, it's not a "feature" as such - Compare The Market can only guess at what lenders will offer and have no control over what you get, it is essentially a good guess by them

I think that some comparison are actually starting to talk to the providers rather than using their own random number generator. ClearScore with some lenders have their "guarantee" on acceptance, APR and amount. 

Interestingly a while back did a check with them for a loan and Zopa came back with the most favourable APR. Did a soft check in the Zopa website and it also came back as something they'd approve but with a much higher APR. Proceeded via the aggregators link and it was approved and did come in at the lower APR. 

Either that was an extraordinary guess or there is some level of integration and communication.

I had a 100% guaranteed acceptance from this site for a Virgin card that instead went to manual review and was rejected, it's just one of those things. I doubt the CRAs or comparison sites are going to be given the sort of data that lenders use for selection criteria as it'd inevitably leak and be used to game the system or other lenders would use it to beat quotes. ClearScore perhaps have an agreement for loan rates with certain lenders as a promo to get more loans in return for commission like the cashback sites do

"This site" as in MSE or ClearScore? 

MSE say your chances of being accepted, they dont "guarantee" it unlike ClearScore, though the guarantee is a chocolate teapot and is still subject to lender. What is accurate however is their APRs and Limits 

It doesnt mean they have to be sharing data, aggregators for insurance dont know the rating factors for most the insurers but instead an API call is made to the insurers servers who return a price. In principle there is no reason why lenders couldn't work the same way returning a limit and APR.

In my case neither the APRs offered were the headline rate

Wasn't through ClearScore, I believe from the MSE Eligibility Checker but could be wrong, was a while ago