New allegations of lack of transparency against Schufa due to credit scores

Schufa is confronted with new accusations of lack of transparency and is defending itself. NDR and “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (SZ) report that by changing their credit rating calculations in March, the credit reporting agency gave the misleading impression that in the future there would only be one score, i.e. a key figure that is easy for consumers to understand.

Instead, Schufa has “secretly developed different and significantly more complex new assessments and is already offering them to its corporate customers,” for example for real estate loans, according to the NDR report. The “SZ” writes: “People see their supposedly completely transparent score in the Schufa app - and yet when granting loans or concluding contracts they are judged according to standards that they do not know and therefore cannot influence.”

New score aims to refute the “black box” accusation

In order to refute critics' accusations that Schufa is a "black box", the credit agency based in Wiesbaden has developed a simplified new score that has been in use since March 17th. There is a maximum of 999 points for twelve criteria. It matters, for example, how old the oldest bank contract and the oldest credit card are and whether there are any payment problems. Schufa's promise: laypeople can easily calculate how the information about their creditworthiness comes about.

“Schufa’s goal is to ensure that only a few of the currently around 50 credit scores remain. And that there is a central score with the highest relevance for consumers. This role is played by the new score, which, according to our expectations, will represent a good 80 percent of all Schufa credit scores by the end of 2028,” said the credit agency in response to the current media reports.

Separate calculation for real estate loans

We already have a mortgage score, but this is rarely requested. “Real estate loans are a special case in the creditworthiness check due to the high loan amounts and long terms. A special score will continue to make sense here in the future,” argues Schufa.

Analogous to the new Schufa score for consumers, the credit agency has “developed a mortgage score that is also easy to understand”: “As soon as the new mortgage score on the real estate loan market becomes relevant for consumers, Schufa will also compulsorily display this score with all the criteria in the Schufa app and explain it to the public.”

Companies receive additional data upon request

An additional service from Schufa: Banks, for example, can receive data from the credit agency on how many loans a consumer has or the total amount of their loans and leasing contracts. Companies can integrate such “aggregated creditworthiness information” into their in-house risk models, explains Schufa. In fact, there are currently “a few large customers” to whom such information is made available.

“In their risk model, companies draw their own conclusions from aggregated creditworthiness information - according to their statistical models,” emphasizes the credit agency. “Consumers can view the data underlying the aggregation at any time in their Schufa data copy or the app.”

Schufa: We do not decide on lending

Schufa also repeatedly argues that its credit information and score calculations are just one component. “Banks and other companies decide based on their internal guidelines and criteria whether and under what conditions they offer a loan agreement.” Nevertheless, the data from credit agencies such as Schufa, Creditreform or Crif are an important benchmark for banks, mail order companies, mobile phone providers and energy suppliers. Schufa has information on 68 million people in Germany.