Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India | 17th December 2019: BankBazaar.com, India’s leading personal finance marketplace, shared a heartening consumer insight around credit reports, revealing that close to 68% of people who checked their credit score on BankBazaar have a score of above 750. A vast majority – almost 70% of those checking their scores are under the age of 40. This is clearly indicative of the fact that young India is credit savvy, responsible and is actively taking ownership of their credit worthiness.
With close to 30M visits every month on an average, BankBazaar is one of the most visited personal finance sites in the country. The company has been providing consumers with their free credit report in partnership with Experian since January 2017. In the last one year alone, BankBazaar has a 111% increase in the number people accessing their credit scores. Interestingly, a high percentage of these check their score on a monthly basis, indicating that consumers are increasingly taking essential steps to build and maintain their scores over time.
BankBazaar Co-founder and CEO, Adhil Shetty, said, “Credit report is the first check point for a lender while considering a loan approval. So, we have worked hard to educate customers about the importance of having a good credit history. For close to three years now, we have been helping customers check, track, and build their credit score so that they have a healthy financial life. The high numbers of customers with high credit scores indicates that customers are not only becoming more vigilant towards monitoring their credit report but are also managing their financial life in the right way.”
Almost 77% of customers who have downloaded the Experian credit report from the BankBazaar platform have a credit score of over 700. More than 68% of customers have a score of 750 or more, and 38% have a score of 800+. The percentage of customers with a comparatively “risky” score of less than 650 was around 13%.
The younger generation accounted for the maximum number of checks. Almost 39% of those who checked the score were in the age group of 31-40, while 28% were in the 26-30 age group. “More than 70% of the people checking their credit report are younger than 40. This is also borne out by the BankBazaar Aspiration Index, which revealed that more than 90% of the people between the ages of 23 and 45 are comfortable taking credit liabilities to fulfil their aspirations and had some form of credit. With growing career choices, financial independence, and shift in societal norms, the younger generation is increasingly daring to dream big, and data shows that they are doing it the smart way,” according to Shetty.
Customers accessing the credit score were also spread across geographies. 45% of those who checked the score were outside the top 10 cities. Says Shetty, “While metros continue to lead in terms of credit awareness, there is a steady increase in the non-metro cities as well. Today, tier-2 and tier-3 cities are increasingly confident about transacting in the digital space and have new alternatives to access credit, giving them a growing edge over their tier-1 counterparts.”
BankBazaar hosts the widest range of financial products from over 50 of the biggest public and private sector banks and NBFCs in India. It seems close to 30M visits every month on an average. The company raised USD 110M through funding from investors such as Amazon.com, Experian, Fidelity Growth Partners, Mousse Partners, Sequoia Capital and Walden International.
