Capital One has announced that later this month their card holders will be able to access their credit scores for free. At this stage it’s not clear if this is part of the FICO score open access initiative or if Capital One will be providing consumers with a FAKO score.
What is clear is that this score will be based on TransUnion data (all partners currently in open access rely on TransUnion data). Users will also have access to the following features:
- Receive notification of credit events (e.g, applications for new credit), which is useful in identifying and preventing identity theft and fraud
- A credit simulator to see how particular changes to your credit report (e.g, paying credit card debt down) will affect your credit score
- Number of educational features
For users who already monitor their credit with one of the other free sites (i.e Credit Karma, Credit Sesame or Quizzle) these features are nothing new and fairly lacking compared to their more robust platforms. Capital One is stating that this is a natural continuation from what they’ve been offering since 2012 with their Capital One Journey Card.
The free credit score will be available to all Capital One branded cardholders at launch and they will be expanding to include all capital one customers at some unspecified time in the future.
We’re pleased to see that Capital One is offering access to free credit scores and improved credit education as a recent survey of theirs found that 43% of their cardholders have no idea what their current credit score is. We can only hope that they offer a FICO score and not a FAKO score.
What do you think of this announcement? Let us know in the comments
Hat tip to the WSJ
