When you get a credit card, loan, mobile phone contract or borrow money, the company you’re asking to borrow from will try to decide whether you'll be a good customer for them. Credit Reference Agencies (CRAs) are central to this decision-making process – they collect information about you from any banks or lenders you have or have had accounts with, and give that information to lenders. Typically, lenders work with at least one of these CRAs to help them make the decision about whether to lend you money or not.
Now we're reporting to Experian, as well as TransUnion
There are three main CRAs: TransUnion, Experian and Equifax. Until now, we’ve only reported information to TransUnion – but today we’re happy to let you know that we’ve also started sharing information with Experian! Although we’ve started sharing information with Experian, it’ll take a month or two for Monzo to appear on your Experian credit report. Experian are working with the data we’re sending them, checking it’s what they expect to see and making sure your experience is a smooth one before they start showing it in their reports.
We're reporting more information to both Experian and TransUnion
We already report information about your current account to TransUnion. But, we’ve recently been working on reporting Monzo Loans and joint accounts to TransUnion too! This means that you’ll start to see your Monzo Loan or joint account (if you have one) on any credit score product powered by TransUnion (like Credit Karma or our new Monzo credit score tool). We'll soon show joint accounts on Experian credit reports too, and we'll show Loans there soon as well.
These improvements will mean that other lenders can get a better picture of you if you’re using Monzo. Here’s an overview of what we report to credit reference agencies:
For your current account:
Some personal information, used to identify you and match your Monzo account to your credit reference agency file
Your overdraft balance and enabled overdraft limit (if you have one)
The type of product you have (it’s a current account) and the date you opened it (and closed if you’ve closed your account).
Whether you’re up to date on any payments you owe for your overdraft.
If you’re over your overdraft limit, how long you have been over your limit for
Whether your account is in default. (This can happen to an account if we’ve asked you to pay something back, and you haven’t for a long time.)
If you have an arrangement to pay (if you’re struggling to pay back your overdraft we can help and set up a repayment plan for you).
For your loan (if you have one):
Some personal information, used to identify you and match your Monzo account to your credit reference agency file
Your remaining loan balance, your loan amount and the initial monthly repayment amount
The type of product you have (a personal loan), and whether you’ve settled it or not
If you’re behind on your loan payments and how many payments you’re behind by
If you have an arrangement to pay (if you’re struggling to pay back your loan we can help and set up a repayment plan for you)
For your joint account (if you have one):
Some personal information, used to identify you and match your joint account to your credit reference agency file
The type of product you have (it’s a joint current account) and the date you opened it (and closed if you’ve closed the account).
Whether your account is in default. (This can happen to an account if we’ve asked you to pay something back, and you haven’t for a long time.)
If we begin to offer overdrafts for joint accounts, we’ll also report some information about that, if you get one, too.
And here’s what credit reference agencies won’t see about you:
Your current account balance if you have a positive balance
Any information about your savings or Pots
Log in or specific usage information
Anything you say to us on Monzo Chat
We report this data once a month.
If you’re checking your credit report, and something from Monzo doesn’t look right, please let us know by chatting with us in the Monzo app.