Probably, today there is no such person who at least once in his life did not use the loan. Sometimes bank employees can make a decision on a loan within 15–20 minutes after you apply.
How do they do it, how can they appreciate a borrower in such a short time? They do not do it themselves - the decision is made by an impartial computer program - a scoring system. It is she who, based on the data entered, evaluates the level of reliability of the client.
What a strange word
This not very clear name comes from the English word score, which means "score". Scoring is a computer program, which is a kind of questionnaire that characterizes the borrower. Before making a decision on granting a loan, a bank employee will ask you to answer some questions, and enter the answers in a computer, after which the program will evaluate the results, assigning a certain number of points for each item. As a result of adding all the ratings, a certain general indicator will be obtained, defined as a scoring score. The higher this score, the greater the likelihood of a positive decision to grant a loan. Most often, more than one type of scoring is used at once, evaluating the client in different directions, or a complex multi-level system is used.
Assessment Types
The most important and most common of them is
Application scoring, a verification method that evaluates the solvency of a client. If you have received insufficient points for this type of assessment, then it will be very difficult to get a loan. Alternatively, you may be offered other loan conditions - a higher
interest rate or a lower loan amount.
The next stage of the assessment is to determine the tendency of the potential borrower to fraud. She is evaluated by the Fraud scoring system . The criteria used to calculate this parameter are the trade secrets of each bank.
Behavioral scoring is a type of verification that allows you to predict the solvency of a client in the future. Also, this analysis system allows you to identify some "behavioral" factors: how the client will dispose of the loan, whether it will make payments accurately and on time, choose the limit on a credit card immediately or will use the money in parts and much more.
There is one more, the most unpleasant type of check - Collection-scoring of the borrower, which is very important for the development of measures to work with clients with overdue debts. It is needed for an adequate assessment of the risk of loan default and the timely application of preventive measures.
Is it possible to "cheat"?
Since credit scoring is carried out by the machine, it may seem that it is not difficult to deceive the system - it is enough to give the “right” answers from the point of view of the bank. However, this is not so, such an attempt can succeed only in those cases when the program is built in such a way that it will not work to verify some data about you right away. If scoring requires only documented information, then it is almost impossible to deceive the system.
It will not be difficult for security officers to verify the correspondence of the data in the questionnaire with the real state of affairs, because in the vast majority they are former employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB and other similar departments and are willing to use the “old connections”. In addition, sometimes it’s enough just to make a call to work or to the neighbors of a future client.
So, you shouldn’t try to deceive the program, because all the known schemes and signs of fraud are initially embedded in it, and if such an attempt is detected, you will never be given a loan in this bank.
So, let's consider what advantages a potential borrower should have if he wants to take a loan without problems.
Personal info - who's lucky
- Sex - it is believed that women are more responsible in fulfilling their financial obligations.
- Age - here excessive youth or maturity can play a cruel joke with you. Preferred is the age of 25–45 years. Customers falling within this range can count on extra points for this item.
- Education - if you have a higher education, the bank will trust you more. Such clients are considered more successful, responsible and financially stable.
- Family ties - single people are not a priority, so if you can “boast” at least a common-law marriage, get an extra point.
- Dependents - of course, having children will not be an obstacle to obtaining a loan, however, the more there are, the lower the score for this item you will receive.
Finance - which professions are preferred
In this part of the questionnaire, the program will evaluate your successes in the field of work - general and seniority, the prestige of the profession, the level of wages recently, the availability of additional sources of income, and more. The ideal option in this case is the presence of only one entry in the workbook - the more often you change jobs, the less you stay at each enterprise, the less points the system will accrue to you.
Oddly enough, banks do not like directors of companies, financial managers, as well as citizens who provide their own employment (notaries, lawyers, private detectives, individual entrepreneurs, etc.), since their income is not fixed, but depends on market trends. Preference is given to self-employed clients — civil servants, specialists, workers, as well as middle managers — their income is considered more stable.
Solvency balance
A scoring assessment of the ratio of expenses and income, the availability of outstanding loans taken earlier is also carried out. So do not artificially inflate your income, especially if the amount of the loan that you want to get is very small. Agree, a person who claims a monthly income of 100 thousand rubles looks rather suspicious, who submits an application for a loan of 10-15 thousand.
What else does the scoring program want to know
Of course, the list of questions assessed by the system in different banks can be quite different, but for sure in each of them you will be asked about additional sources for securing a loan. Bank employees will be interested in whether you have additional sources of financial resources, if you are the owner of a summer residence, garage, land, car (if so, which one). Also, the bank will definitely ask why you need money, whether you applied for a loan earlier, how well you performed your obligations to organizations that previously issued you a loan. Points are also awarded for each of these criteria.
Screening Criteria
- Face control . Although scoring is an automatic computer program, it is people who enter the data into it, so even in this case the “human factor” cannot be completely eliminated. Therefore, going to an interview, try to dress more solidly.
- The purpose of lending. If you arrange a loan as an individual, then an ideal reason for this could be a repair, purchase of a summer cottage, vacation, purchase of real estate or a car. If you tell bank employees that you are taking money to start a business, you will most likely receive a refusal - the criteria for evaluating legal entities are completely different.
- Credit history. Of course, most often the scoring program does not have direct access to your history, but it can check the availability of data about you in the “black list” compiled by bank employees on the basis of previously made inquiries to the credit history bureau.
When they still will not give a loan
If during the last 30 days you tried three times to take a loan and were refused, then you should not try to do it again. Most likely, they will refuse you again. The fact is that such a scheme is embedded in the program database. Therefore, do not suffer, just wait a month and a half, and your chances of getting credit scoring will increase many times over.
Another important factor is the credit load of the client. The program will calculate the total amount of your loan payments and decide whether you “pull” another one.
It happens that banks organize a whole scoring network, so you should not submit several applications for a loan at once. If their number exceeds 3-4, then most likely you will receive a refusal at once in all banks.
Pros and Cons of AutoCheck
Despite the fact that the scoring program is quite high-tech, it still has some disadvantages:
- banks use a fairly high scale for settlements, which is simply unattainable in many respects to the average borrower;
- the client’s specific data are not taken into account at all, for example, Khrushchev in the center of the capital can be regarded as a suitable property, but a mansion on the river bank somewhere in the Irkutsk region will be designated by the system as a “house in the village”;
- in small banks that do not have sufficient funding for the purchase of expensive scoring systems, the audit is conducted quite superficially;
- the normal existence of a scoring system implies the presence of an accompanying infrastructure (credit bureaus, etc.).
However, some disadvantages cannot cross out the positive aspects of using this type of assessment:
- the system gives the most impartial assessment, the influence of personal impressions of employees is minimized;
- financial institutions using a scoring system offer their customers a more favorable percentage, since the risk of non-return is minimized;
- scoring allows the bank to reduce the number of personnel involved in processing applications;
- decision-making time is reduced to 15–20 minutes;
- in the case of a negative decision, the client will be given a list of factors that influenced the receipt of a low scoring score - this will correct the mistakes made during subsequent calls.
In conclusion, it is worth saying that such a rating system is quite new for Russia. And not every bank uses it. So if you are clearly aware of your shortcomings and decide to get a loan without scoring, then to do this is quite realistic, you just need to find "your" bank.