Do you have an acccount with online-only bank Revolut? If it’s a yes, then you can now sign up to have your monthly rent payments count towards your credit history, for free.
Revolut recently enabled its 1.6 million UK account holders to share their data with third-party services like CreditLadder should they wish to, and it now takes just a few clicks to give us the green light via our website. Here's where to sign up.
Once that’s complete, we’ll start recognising your rental payments and report them to credit referencing agency Experian. This will include your payment record within the information it makes available to banks, building societies and credit card companies. This is then used to help them make lending decisions.
Banking on it
CreditLadder already reads the rent of thousands of tenants who pay their rent through other banks including familiar high street names such as Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, Halifax, Metro Bank, NatWest, RBS, Santander, The Co-Operative Bank, First Direct and TSB as well as challenger banks (like Revolut) such as Monzo and Starling.
If you’re wondering how this happens, then here's a snapshot. All of these banks, including Revolut, have signed up to enable their customers to share their payment data with services like ours, in our case when they pay their rent and how much it is.
It's part of a revolution in banking that was started by a European Union initiative called Open Banking which requires the UK's nine key high street banks to allow their customers to share their banking data, although many other banks do it too.
If you’re worried about ‘sharing’ your payment details, remember that we only have ‘read only’ access to your account; we don’t see your log-in details and can’t change anything within your account.
If you’d like to know more about us, then read this blog about how we’re FCA-regulated, backed by HMRC and how The Times, MoneySavingExpert and Which? have all written about our service.
CreditLadder can help you improve your credit score
If you want to improve your credit position by reporting your rent payments, CreditLadder is the only way to improve your credit score and position across all four of the main Credit Reference Agencies in the UK, namely Experian, Equifax, TransUnion and Crediva. Building up a high credit score has a lot of benefits, including helping you access finance at better rates - this can also help save you money.
CreditLadder also runs a free mortgage application service in partnership with Tembo which will tell you how much you could borrow.
Remember the information provided in this article is for information purposes only and should not be considered as advice.
