topic Re: Free Credit Score ? in General Credit Topics

Free Credit Score ?

coldnmn — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 11:43:07 GMT

Do you believe the free credit score is a benefit by card companies purchased for their customers? Or a monitoring tool purchased from TU for monitoring fluctuations in customers credit files saving companies money by not having to do their own monitoring.

Re: Free Credit Score ?

Gunnar419 — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 15:05:27 GMT

They already monitor us through SPs on a CRA, so I think the free FICO score is a benefit for cardholders. I don't see that it gives the card companies anything monitoring capability that they didn't already have.

Re: Free Credit Score ?

lg8302ch — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 15:18:42 GMT

+1
the only advantage for the card companies I could imagine is that customers pay more attention to their "credit behaviour" when they see the score moves...LOL

Re: Free Credit Score ?

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 15:21:52 GMT

@Gunnar419 wrote:
They already monitor us through SPs on a CRA, so I think the free FICO score is a benefit for cardholders. I don't see that it gives the card companies anything monitoring capability that they didn't already have.

Yes, and (just guessing here) it might also be a way of holding off future legislation requiring consumers to have access to credit scores (rather like the free annual credit report stuff, you can imagine the next step, consumers allowed one representative FICO score a year from each bureau). And once people get hooked on a monthly version, they can pay more to get more frequent updates!

Re: Free Credit Score ?

Walt_K — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 15:27:23 GMT

@Gunnar419 wrote:
They already monitor us through SPs on a CRA, so I think the free FICO score is a benefit for cardholders. I don't see that it gives the card companies anything monitoring capability that they didn't already have.

Having access to your credit report is not the same thing as getting the score. So while I don't know that this is part of the reason, I do understand OPs question. They would be getting additional info that they did not already have.

I expect that this is part of a larger transaction rather than a company negotiating for this individual benefit per card type from FICO. For example, Barclay offers TU08 (I believe) with several of their card products. Barclay, like any bank, purchases a lot of information from FICO. As part of their negotiation over their contracts, this could have been part of a value add proposition that FICO offered which would help FICO try to promote this version of FICO that hasn't seen a lot of uptake. It very well could have been sold to the banks on both fronts, as something they can offer to their customers and as an additional metric they can use to monitor changes in credit profiles.

Re: Free Credit Score ?

coldnmn — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 20:35:32 GMT

@Walt_K wrote:
@Gunnar419 wrote:
They already monitor us through SPs on a CRA, so I think the free FICO score is a benefit for cardholders. I don't see that it gives the card companies anything monitoring capability that they didn't already have.

Having access to your credit report is not the same thing as getting the score. So while I don't know that this is part of the reason, I do understand OPs question. They would be getting additional info that they did not already have.

I expect that this is part of a larger transaction rather than a company negotiating for this individual benefit per card type from FICO. For example, Barclay offers TU08 (I believe) with several of their card products. Barclay, like any bank, purchases a lot of information from FICO. As part of their negotiation over their contracts, this could have been part of a value add proposition that FICO offered which would help FICO try to promote this version of FICO that hasn't seen a lot of uptake. It very well could have been sold to the banks on both fronts, as something they can offer to their customers and as an additional metric they can use to monitor changes in credit profiles.

That's what I was thinking but I believe everyone has valid points. It will be interesting to see If someones score takes a dive how soon they catch it.