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Your Credit Score: supporting 10 million customers

 

Your Credit Score is helping customers take control of their money, build their financial confidence, and even tackle fraud.

Sam Clark
Customer Affordability & Data Director
01 July 2024
3 min read

Last week Your Credit Score – a free, in-app credit check tool available to all of our Internet Banking customers - reached 10 million registered users. It’s encouraging that so many of our customers are seeing the benefit and quickly taking advantage of the support we can offer them. It means that we’re now engaging directly with half of our internet banking base, providing them with highly personalised tips and next-best-actions that they can take to improve their credit score and meet their financial goals. 

But what is Your Credit Score, and why do we think it’s such a valuable tool? There are ways that Your Credit Score can help customers to build their credit health, increase their financial knowledge and confidence, and even spot where there might be something on their account that doesn’t look right, including potential fraudulent activity, which could be damaging their score.

What is Your Credit Score?

Your Credit Score is a free, award-winning service available to our online banking customers. We work together with credit reference agency TransUnion to provide our customers with their credit score to give then the latest view of their credit health. 

The tool shows customers their score and offers personalised tips on the best way to improve or maintain it. It also gives customers full access to their credit report and a view of how this has changed over time. They also have the ability to raise a dispute with anything that doesn’t look right, all within the ecosystem of their banking app. 

“Your Credit Score is a free, award-winning service available to our online banking customers.”

Why does a credit score matter?

A credit score shows how someone has managed their money in the past and how banks will view them when they are looking for lending. Someone with a good credit score will be more likely to be able to access a wider range of financial products and rates, so having a strong credit score is really important for anyone who wants to, say, buy a house or take out a credit card. 

There are things that can damage a credit score, such as defaulting on, or making late, payments. But, for someone who’s perhaps not super engaged with their finances, it can be difficult to build a full picture of what’s going on with their money, and how things like defaulted payments can impact them in the longer term. 

The Your Credit Score tool puts all of these impacts in one place and paints the full picture. It can also give hints and helpful next steps that people can take so that they’re more in control of their money, as well as how to build their credit score and get themselves into a stronger financial position.

How is Your Credit Score helping customers' financial wellbeing?

Within the Your Credit Score tool we offer features such as credit report history and how someone’s score fares against others. It also contains educational features such as FAQs, and next steps customers can take to help improve their score.

No matter whether the score could be improved or is already excellent, it will suggest things that could be impacting their score over time, so that customers are able to address these blockers and improve their finances.

We’re seeing about

600,000

customers who are improving their score each quarter and moving up a score band.

 

How can Your Credit Score help support customers in financial difficulty?

Your Credit Score can help customers who are perhaps starting their credit journey or who might be facing financial difficulty, as it can give them a clear view of their finances. By getting people facing financial difficulty onto a treatment plan, we can help them to improve their overall financial health. 

We’ve done this through a variety of measures, including signposting to our cost of living hub which offers general support and advice, as well as to the CIFD self-serve journey where appropriate, where we can help set up a digital treatment plan for customers in financial difficulty. About 250,000 customers have gone through a digital journey and have clicked on one of those support links to start the process. So far we’ve supported over 10,500 customers onto a treatment plan.

Your Credit Score also offers customers interactive features, such as our Score Simulator, which helps customers have full visibility of the potential outcome of their actions on their credit score, for example, will say, adding a new credit card lead to a score improving, or will it have a negative impact? 

We’re seeing about 600,000 customers who are improving their score each quarter and moving up a score band. They may be going from ‘good’ to ‘excellent’, or from ‘needs work’ to ‘OK’, and are gradually moving into much stronger positions from a creditworthiness perspective, as well as getting them into a stronger financial position overall.

 

A staggering

1 in 5

customers in the UK have an error or irregularity on their credit report.

 

How is Your Credit Score helping to fight fraud?

Since its launch we’ve had tangible examples of people using Your Credit Score to highlight inaccuracies on their reports, and even spot fraudulent activity being carried out in their name, and being able to resolve it. We even have an example of a customer who was applying for a mortgage, spotting something on their credit report that wasn't them. 

It was a fraudulently opened account, but because it was flagged in the Your Credit Score tool they were able to successfully dispute it, have it taken off of their report, and were able to improve the score and successfully take on a mortgage.

We strongly encourage customers to build good financial habits and check in on a regular basis so that if they spot something that doesn’t look right it can be actioned quickly, giving customers confidence and reassurance that their report is accurate.

While disputes are often thought of as being something quite negative, we encourage customers to dispute anything that doesn’t look right. About 9-10,000 disputes are flagged through the tool on a monthly basis and a staggering one in five customers in the UK have an error or irregularity on their credit report. By making this information accessible, were helping to alleviate some of the fear and feelings of powerlessness that people may have when it comes to engaging with their credit report. 

This is even more important in this day and age, where customers - particularly the younger market - are increasingly exposed to online scams. We’re committed to educating about the importance of building healthy financial habits and staying vigilant, empowering them with the tools they need to stay in control of their money.

Reaching 10 million customers with Your Credit Score 

Launching Your Credit Score has allowed us to provide people with personalised tools, financial education, tips and actions to improve their credit score and move towards greater affordability. Visibility of their credit score means that customers have a clear view of where their finances are, and how to get to the next step - all within the convenience of their everyday banking app. By bringing this ease to peoples finances, we can help remove the barriers that are keeping people from reaching their financial goals, supporting our customers, and Helping Britain Prosper.

Financial wellbeing

 

Sam Clark
About the author Sam Clark

Customer Affordability & Data Director

Sam joined Lloyds Banking Group in 2004 as a Graduate Management Trainee. He has worked in Business Banking, Commercial, and for the past 10 years in the Retail Bank, holding several roles related to pricing, product management, and covering Homes, Savings, and Cards.

In July 2022, Sam transitioned to a new role in Consumer Lending, aiming to reimagine how the bank assesses and manages customer affordability for more digital-centric journeys. His team is responsible for developing and building ‘Your Credit Score,’ an online tool that provides customers with information about their affordability. Currently, Your Credit Score has over 9.5 million registered users, with more than 6 million customers registered for its push alerts. 

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