My name is Asa and I’m the Operations Director at CreditLadder. CreditLadder is the number one rent recognition platform in the UK and we enable renters to add their payments to their credit history. We’ve already reported over £16m in rents to date.
We are today very happy to announced that we now support Monzo customers.
You connect your Monzo account as part of your application on our website www.creditladder.co.uk. We then read your rent from your Monzo account. This is then reported to Experian monthly and this helps to improve your credit history.
We hope to fully integrate with Monzo in the future but this is a step in the right direction and this means that you can have your rent recognised.
If you have questions or feedback then please do let me know. We would love to hear what you think.
Hi. How do you stop people gaming you? For example my rent is a monthly standing order to a person. How do you know that is not my mate who flips it back to me 5 minutes later or to a different account? (It is actually my landlord, but how can you be sure?)
This is pretty cool, Monzo users that also use Credit Ladder can now build their credit history by paying their rent on time.
Anything that helps boost your score, without requiring you to take out credit is great in my opinion, especially for immigrants who start with no score & can’t borrow as a result.
Nice to see a credit reporting service that’s opt in, as it gives the user the choice between privacy and better rates on financial products. This should be the norm for anything that reports to credit bureaus.
Hmm I’m not sure that, that would work though, some of the data only works because people can’t opt out & therefore hide their bad borrowing behaviour.
some of the data only works because people can’t opt out & therefore hide their bad borrowing behaviour.
The system should be designed so that you need good data to qualify; so having no data would be equal to having bad credit, thus being able to opt-out wouldn’t allow you to game the system by “hiding” bad behaviour, while allowing privacy to those who want it.
Also I wouldn’t really be that critical of “credit history” if it actually represented credit - loans from regulated financial organisations; but at the moment it’s a bit like the Wild West where the credit history system allows shitty companies (utilities, etc) to pressure people into paying for awful service.
But wouldn’t that mean that once someone had built up a good credit score (don’t @ me about credit scores not meaning anything, it’s the most simple way to refer to this) & then rapidly got into trouble, their score wouldn’t reflect that?
It’s having to take out credit cards in order to build a score that I have a problem with.
Lenders can require a consistent history of good behaviour, so if there’s a hole in the data for 3 months, then that’s suspicious. The current credit system is already quite vulnerable to this, as lenders only report every month, which means if one month you go into trouble you can still apply for a ton of more credit before the initial bad behaviour is reflected on your credit history.
It’s having to take out credit cards in order to build a score that I have a problem with.
Isn’t that the logical thing to do though? Show lenders that you can manage debt by taking on little debt and demonstrating your ability to manage it? Rent isn’t credit, nor are utilities - you can very well be a bad payer when it comes to credit but pay your utilities on time, or the opposite (I have a consistent history of giving the middle finger to utilities that can’t be bothered to deliver a decent product, but have yet to miss a single payment on my credit card).
Hi! A great question and one that we get a lot. We have a number of security and validation checks in place for both tenants and landlords/agent in place. These have been established overtime and are battle hardened. It’s very important to us that we report only true tenancies and something we’ve developed since launch in 2016.
Some very interesting points. It sounds like you have some great knowledge of the credit system!
With respect to rent and credit, which you are likely aware, where you are provided with a good or service in advance where you agree via a contract to make payments for i.e. gas/water/electric, these aren’t classed as credit in the financial sense but these payments are also shared with credit reference agencies and act as a benefit and an incentive to pay, whilst demonstrating creditworthiness and responsible payment patterns from you…rent is likely to be the largest outgoing and so we should look to reward/incentives positive behaviour by working with the credit reference agencies. We’re here to help tenants as they may one day wish to own their own home.
These rewards are accessed through a portal full of 120+ benefits and discounts but these are not on the Monzo app to be clear. These are seperate. You get a mixture of codes and top up cards dependent upon the retailer or benefit. You’ll easily see a net benefit if you go to the cinema and use the free coffee. The other discounts on shopping are then an added bonus. If you have specific questions on this please do not hesitate to get in touch on help@creditladder.co.uk.
where you are provided with a good or service in advance where you agree via a contract to make payments
Yep that’s right in theory - in practice though I feel like those “credit” providers are much less regulated than the real credit (card, loan, etc) providers, which means they can do pretty much anything and use the credit system to pressure people into continuing to pay for a defective or mis-sold/falsely advertised service.
Personally I’ve got my share of incidents where the customer service just ghosts you completely (even the formal process with letters and stuff doesn’t end up in a reply)… until you block their direct debits - then they magically want to work with you to sort out the issue. If I cared about my credit and had plans like a mortgage then I would have no choice but to keep paying for nothing.
I fully understand if you have been stung by bad service in the past. I’m sure we all share your pain at some point. At CreditLadder we are not about this. We pride ourselves on our service and it’s something that we constantly invest in. Some excellent points for discussion, thank you!
you can if say working abroad for six months or a year say submit a “Notice of Correction” to the CRAs in which you make a statement that please be advised that I Mr X was working abroad from date A to date B so credit firms have an explanation for any gap in credit and residency data. The CRAs are obliged to pass on Notices when credit application searches are undertaken. Notices can be used rather creatively, one man included on his CRA files a notification that only credit applications bearing his fingerprint could be accepted!
There’s nothing like “good” data or “bad” data. The flaw with a lender’s market is that you require a large number of “good” behaving citizens to support some of the “bad” behaving ones. Which is why it’s a lot better if every person’s data is used in building the models. Otherwise, what you’ll see is the data gets pretty skewed to well behaving citizens and make it harder to get loans or mortgages in the long run, even if you pay your bills on time.
Having reviewed the account in full to help with this:
The payment date was updated immediately following your request. For bank holidays (as mentioned on site) any rent due over the period is expected the next working day. Which in this case will be today (3rd). The rent will be read today and reported as paid, on time. No late payment has been recorded or reported we can confirm.
The banks do not typically process regular payments on these non-banking days which I’m sure you are aware. For any payment due on a weekend or bank holiday this is due and read the next working day.
We have a duplicate application for you which has now been removed. We would be very much interested in your feedback which led to this action. I’ll personally be in touch via email to pick up with you if that is ok? We want the service to be as smooth as possible!
This has been tested and cannot be replicated. Everything seems ok with your login and account. Can you try clearing your cache and try once more? Otherwise, we can pick up on email also.
I’ll be in touch following this post to help further.
Can I ask for a little details on what you report to agencies?
What type of account would show? How would it show e.g if I rented and it was £500 a month would it show as a £500 loan that’s paid in full or what?
I’ve seen something else similar to yourselves called delighted but that works as a rent guarantee instead of deposit so That seems to offer the same as you but with the added bonus of removing the need for the tennant to pay a deposit.
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