Schufa, the biggest credit agency in Germany, wants to be more open. An app is a component of this strategy. There, a free, ongoing display of the Schufa score is required. Advocates for consumers criticize this.
The Schufa report is well-known to everyone. When looking for an apartment, submitting a loan application, or making an installment purchase, it is difficult to avoid the paperwork from Germany’s top credit agency. While some impatiently anticipate the credit agency’s decision, for some it may just be a formality that they find unpleasant. Few people are ad hoc aware of their own Schufa score.
That will soon alter: Using the “Bonify” app, users may view their so-called “Schufa-Basisscore” for free and permanently after registering. Despite the fact that this cannot replace the Schufa credit report
App requests access to a bank account
According to Schufa, the service was debuted this week on the “Bonify” webpage and will be made available in the “Bonify Finanzmanager” app in the coming weeks. Users must register with their ID card or bank account in order to view the basic score.
Forteil GmbH, a financial business with headquarters in Berlin that Schufa acquired roughly six months ago, runs the “Bonify” app. The credit score of a Schufa rival is only one of the services that “Bonify” has so far supplied. According to the advertising claim, anyone who join with their bank account may have their financial data evaluated; spending patterns, savings levels, and wage information are all examined and optimization recommendations are given. After then, “Bonify” has access to account activity.
There isn’t (yet) any data sharing.
Schufa claims that the data from the two connected businesses won’t be automatically transferred. Although the Bonify app shows the Schufa basi-score, the business claims that Schufa does not automatically have access to the customers’ financial information. Schufa responds that it naturally complies with data protection rules upon request. Legally autonomous businesses, Schufa and “Bonify” would conduct themselves as such. “Schufa and Bonify cannot access each other’s data,” a representative says.
The hazards of utilizing the new service, according to Felix Flosbach of the North Rhine-Westphalia consumer protection office, outweigh the advantages. Particularly given that the advantage, namely the availability of seeking one’s Schufa score without cost, is not exclusive:
“With the app, this gimmick is put down that you can look at your Schufa baseline score so that people will use the app,” adds Flosbach. Since using an ID card to register is still uncommon, it stands to reason that many individuals will register using their bank account instead. Then “Bonify” will probably assess account transactions. “That means that we are now granting access to this data in order to retrieve this basic score, which can be retrieved from Schufa free of charge once a year anyway,” adds Flosbach.He worries that the score will prevent users from becoming used to the software before any future revisions to the conditions of use.
Schufa claims it provides the app to provide customers more transparency and control in answer to a question. According to a spokesperson, “over the course of the year, the data stored at Schufa that is crucial for determining creditworthiness will also be available via Bonify.” The score will continue to be available for free viewing in the future.
Schufa is in contact with Berlin’s commissioner for data protection
Since March, the Schufa score has been included into the “Bonify” app with the help of the Berlin data protection commissioner. A spokesperson said in response to a question that the authority has previously spoken with the company and has been examining the app since May. In theory, a legal foundation must exist for the data interchange between a financial services provider like “Bonify” and a credit agency like Schufa, she added.
“Whether the transfer of personal data from Bonify to Schufa complies with data protection will decisively depend on the concrete form of the declaration of consent, which we have requested for further examination,” the spokesperson wrote to rbb. The has tight guidelines for
Schufa intends to shortly include score simulation to the app.
especially considering that Schufa has previously said it is developing improvements for “Bonify.” The software may develop into a data cockpit as early as next year, enabling users to model how different choices would affect their basic score.
Beginning in June, the “Finanzwende” group had already started a petition against Schufa’s ideas. It blasted the corporation for using the guise of a transparency drive to create incentives for the company to provide it more information. People with such a cockpit are “under pressure” from Schufa to want to increase their score by providing additional details.
The ideas and new app of Schufa have also drawn criticism from Schuldnerberatung Berlin. Transparency is not produced by it.Schufa has always handled its
They find the subject intriguing since, among other things, the “Bonify” app also provides a form of credit promotion. Aside from being tailored to individual needs, the webpage has said for some time that it is also for persons with Schufa scores that are too low to really be eligible for loans.
Debt counselor issues a warning
As a result, although one section of the app will in the future inform users of their Schufa score, another (different) section of the same app will provide loans to users whose Schufa score is really too low for a conventional loan. Tran, a debt counselor, adds that while this is not prohibited, it is rare.
This calls into question if “tailoring” for each individual is really all that advantageous, argues