@tomdavies, appreciate this has just been fully launched, but I find this is one of those times where Monzo are shouting about changing the industry, yet doing exactly what every other bank does…
It’s very clear that there is zero transparency (or understanding) with how your lending criteria works…
Do you think you could explain a little around some of the “we can’t offer you a loan” messages?
The two that I’ve seen which seem a bit fluffy are…
“Due to your circumstances” - What does that even mean?
“Due to your income/expenditure” - This is the one I have, yet my personal Monzo account has little to no activity on it, as everything is in my Joint Monzo account.
Monzo are still happy to offer me £1,000 overdraft (assuming this is due to my excellent credit score), but somewhere, the loan criteria has changed?
It would be great to clear this up early, as I can see this issue running and running otherwise.
“Based on your circumstances, we can’t offer you a loan at the moment.”
I’ve no idea why, and there’s no indication of reason (which would be helpful).
I’m a primary Joint Account user (personal account has some referral transactions, but that’s about it). I’m self-employed too, if that makes the difference.
Don’t actually want a loan, but I’m curious to understand!
I don’t think that’s necessarily do-able… If they purely look at the numbers of your Credit Karma score, they won’t necessarily know what specifically you need to do (that would be on your Credit Karma report).
I get it’s a complex solution, but I do think it’s currently far too wooly for a company who are championing more visibility of your finances, and their products.
Also, it does actually say ‘You can check your score for free, and see how to improve it, on credit karma.’ and then gives you a link to Credit Karma. That seems like plenty of info for this message IMO.
Like others, eligible for £1000 overdraft but not a loan. Seems very strange. Also if you’re not willing to offer me a loan fine, but don’t advertise it in 5 different places throughout the app!
I can see part of the problem being just how much info is given out to customers… Which is probably why the lending criteria of other banks is so vague.
If Monzo are saying it’s purely your Credit Karma score… Could they say what score you needed to achieve before being eligible?
If it’s just your income/expenditure, could they not elaborate a little more? It could easily be that someone runs their account close to zero because they move money out of Monzo and into savings accounts.
I think Monzo either need to come out and say “Look, we simply can’t elaborate further on the criteria”, which is fine, but drop the whole “changing the industry” line…
Or they can come and explain a little more about how things are being decided.
I took a loan for £1000 over 6 months for a large purchase, paid it off 2 months early, and now it’s properly launched, I’m not eligible
If we knew what the criteria was related to, if it’s income vs expenditure for example, I could fix that - currently my salary is going into another bank, and a lesser amount to cover my DDs is going into Monzo so it might look like I’m at 100% spending.
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Anarchist
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I think it’s unlikely that they’d be completely transparent with this. If I were them, I’d want to avoid people ‘gaming’ the system.
AFAIK the actual score you see with CRAs like Credit Karma is largely irrelevant and isn’t viewable by the companies credit scoring you. They get access to the actual report and each have their own lending criteria, so an internal score may be produced.
I assume this is what Monzo mean though I’m happy to be corrected.
Not sure why anyone thinks that a credit score number comes into this at all. I can’t imagine Monzo being the first bank to make lending decisions based on those numbers.
The message seems to suggest it’s based on account usage and nothing more so I’ll take it at face value. Looking around for other explanations is based on a fairly flimsy looking assumption that there is another explanation. Of course, Monzo has no idea what I’ve got in any of my other accounts so it’s a decision based on limited data.
Yeah there’s a few different messages people are getting, it looks like the first check is for a good enough credit rating, and then they move onto other things to judge once they’ve checked that minimum credit rating exists.
I’ve reached out to Monzo for some clarification on this. They’ve came back to me and said the circumstances message means theres not enough credit information to make a decision and referred me to Credit Karma.
My car finance that I’ve now had for 14 months, previously settled car finance, my CCs ( 1 for 6 years and the 2nd for 4 years) are all on there so I’m bamboozled as to how much credit information they need.
That can’t be it, I have plenty of good credit history in my report… mortgage, credit card repayments, low credit utilisation, etc. No defaults. I think it’s more likely that it’s because I don’t use the account.
Based on my income and outgoings I’m not eligible, which is hardly surprising as I use my joint account for everything but its a shame that I’m being excluded for not using the solo account.
Is this another item to stick on the joint account parity list?
I’m the exact same except I do use the account
When I questioned this, they simply said oh your just not eligible now it doesn’t mean you won’t be in the future. Not really transparent.
