Nationwide Launches Free In-App Credit Score Service Powered by Equifax #

Nationwide Building Society has added a free credit score tool to its mobile app and online banking platform, powered by Equifax. Members can view their score and the main factors behind it without affecting their credit rating.

The widget, announced on Nationwide’s media centre, will expand over time to include educational content on borrowing, saving, and money management, the building society said.

The tool addresses a financial literacy gap identified by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA research cited by Nationwide found that fewer than two in five people who had checked their credit report or score said they fully understood it, with around one in ten saying they did not understand it at all. The most common reasons for checking were gaining an overall picture of their financial situation (cited by 66% of respondents) and curiosity (41%), while one in five used their score to assess eligibility for credit.

David Gordon, Chief Product Owner at Nationwide, said the service was designed to help customers build financial confidence and make more informed decisions about their money. He noted that credit scores can be difficult for consumers to interpret.

The credit score feature is separate from, but announced alongside, an update to Nationwide’s existing relationship with mortgage technology platform Smartr365, according to Mortgage Solutions. That update extends the mutual’s direct-to-lender API so that nearly all decision-in-principle journeys can be handled on a single platform, with the ability to reprocess applications, reserve products, and submit full mortgage applications without navigating multiple lender portals.

Nationwide is the world’s largest building society, with more than 16 million members following its acquisition of Virgin Money. The organisation recently completed a migration of 15 million accounts to a cloud-native core banking platform built on Microsoft Azure.

Source: Nationwide Building Society