Smart financial consumers monitor their credit score, even when they aren’t in the market for credit. Not only does keeping an eagle eye on your credit score help you stay financially responsible, but it also helps you address problems, issues, or fraudulent entries before they hurt your creditworthiness. You can also plan for any coming credit needs. Today we are looking at one convenient way to monitor your credit score offered by a leading South African bank, and how to do it. Let’s get started!
Why Should I Check My Credit Score, Anyway?
In South Africa, there is a well-known spate of financial scams where people impersonate you to lenders to access your good credit record. Of course, they then scam the banks or lenders in your name and disappear into the sunset. You will be left piecing together the mess they have made of your good credit! This can be tough enough, depending on the amount and degree of identity fraud that has been committed. But leaving it for a long time will make things infinitely harder. If you are regularly checking your credit score and see that something has impacted it, you can act quickly to resolve the matter.
Additionally, the credit bureaus aren’t perfect. It’s not uncommon for erroneous details to be uploaded to your profile. Especially if you have a common name shared by many others. These wrong details, even on small things like your phone number or address, can have an impact on many things. Your credit score and the perception of credit risk you have with lenders, of course! But it can also do things like muddy common security questions banks and sim card operators use with false information, potentially locking you out of sim swaps or causing issues with your FICA process at the bank.
Last, but certainly not least, remember that your credit score is a tool. And like any good tool, you want it ready to go when you need it! You don’t want to find the perfect property for your family or need credit in an emergency, only to find out your score is deep in the toilet and no one will lend to you.
Not only does checking your credit score help you take responsibility for your financial habits, but it helps you prepare ahead for the times you need it. If your score is currently bad, you can take steps to improve it before it becomes a crisis. And if it is good, you can ensure it stays positive for when you need it.
How do I check my credit score on the Standard Bank App?
Did you know you can check your credit score on the Standard Bank app now? Sign into your banking app on your mobile device and go to the add-on store (top left-hand corner). Once the add-on is installed, you can view the credit report detail Standard Bank has for you whenever you please.
Remember, however, that this data doesn’t come from Standard Bank itself. There are many credit bureaus, of which 4 are considered major in South Africa. Standard Bank uses the data from one of these bureaus to arrive at the figure you see. So your score may vary a little at other lenders, depending on who they use and prefer. However, monitoring at least one bureau’s credit score this way will be a great start to taking control of your credit health, and it couldn’t be easier now you can see it whenever you log in to your banking app.
Which Credit Score Does Standard Bank Use?
The credit score on the Standard Bank app comes from Experian. Along with TransUnion, Experian is one of the most used credit bureaus globally, so you know the information will be solid and reliable. While the specific score may vary a touch between other bureaus, you will get an accurate overall picture of your creditworthiness from this score.
How Do I Check my Credit Score on my Bank Account?
Standard Bank is not the only bank to offer a credit score widget like this. African Bank, for example, has a very similar option. How and where you access this feature will vary by bank, so you may want to get in touch with their customer support to find out if they offer this feature and how you would activate it.
Again, we should mention that the credit score shown on any bank account rarely comes from the bank itself. Instead, they are using a third-party widget to pull data from their credit bureau of choice, usually one of the big four in South Africa.
All South Africans should know that they are entitled to one free credit report from each bureau in a 12-month period. Plus, you can pay a tiny fee to get another report at any time. And there is a wealth of new aggregating tools, like ClearScore, which are free to use and aren’t tied to a specific bank. These similarly pull the data as a third party and show it to you, and will let you monitor your credit score every month. So your bank account isn’t the only way to see your credit score. Just a convenient one!
Can You Check Your Credit Score with Online Banking?
As the data used comes from the credit bureaus through a third-party ‘widget’, it is rarer to be able to access your credit score with online banking than it is through banking apps. The browsers are harder to secure and make safe for such critical financial information. Some do allow it, however. If you’d like to know if you can check your credit score with your online banking, reach out to your bank’s customer support team for assistance.
Keeping track of your credit score is a simple, smart thing you can do to maintain your creditworthiness and keep yourself financially responsible. And now it is easier than ever to do, too!
