SavvyMoney My Credit Score FAQs
On March 17th, SavvyMoney Credit Score will be available to Oakworth clients through online banking. SavvyMoney Credit Score is a free service offered to help you understand your current credit score, give access to your full credit report, provide credit monitoring alerts, show you how you can improve it.
Q: What is SavvyMoney Credit Score?
A: SavvyMoney is a comprehensive Credit Score program offered by Oakworth Capital Bank, that helps you stay on top of your credit. You get your latest credit score and report, plus an understanding of key factors that impact the score. With this program, you always know where you stand with your credit.
Credit Score also monitors your credit report daily and informs you by email if there are any big changes detected such as a new account being opened, a change in address or employment, a delinquency has been reported or an inquiry has been made. Monitoring helps users keep an eye out for identity theft.
Q: What is SavvyMoney Credit Report?
A: SavvyMoney Credit Report provides you all the information you would find on your credit file including a list of open outside loans (currently Oakworth Capital Bank Loans are not included with the SavvyMoney Credit Report, but will be coming in the next few months), accounts and credit inquiries. You will also be able to see details on your payment history, credit utilization, and public records that show up on your account. Like Credit Score, when you check your credit report, there will be no impact on your score.
Q. Is there a fee?
A: No. SavvyMoney is entirely free and no credit card information is required to register.
Q: How often is my credit score updated?
A: As long as you are a regular online banking user, your credit score will be updated every month and displayed in your online banking screen. You can click “refresh score” as frequently as every day by navigating to the detailed SavvyMoney site from within online banking.
Q: How does the SavvyMoney Credit Score differ from other credit scoring offerings?
A: SavvyMoney pulls your credit profile from TransUnion, one of the three major credit reporting bureaus, and uses VantageScore 3.0, a credit scoring model developed collaboratively by the three major credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. This model seeks to make score information more uniform between the three bureaus to provide consumers a better picture of their credit health.
Q: Why do credit scores differ?
A: There are three major credit-reporting bureaus—Equifax, Experian and Transunion—and two scoring models—FICO or VantageScore—that determine credit scores. Financial institutions use different bureaus, as well as their own scoring models. Over 200 factors of a credit report may be taken into account when calculating a score and each model may weigh credit factors differently, so no scoring model is completely identical. No matter what credit bureau or credit scoring model is used, consumers do fall into specific credit ranges: Excellent 781–850, Good 661-780, Fair 601-660, Unfavorable 501-600, Bad Below 500.
Q: Will Oakworth Capital Bank use SavvyMoney Credit Score to make loan decisions?
A: No, Oakworth Capital Bank uses its own lending criteria for making loans.
Q: Will SavvyMoney share my credit score with Oakworth Capital Bank?
A: No, your SavvyMoney Credit Score is a free service to help you understand your credit health and how you make improvements in your score.
Q: How does SavvyMoney Credit Score keep my financial information secure?
A: SavvyMoney uses bank level encryption and security measures to keep your data safe and secure. Your personal information is never shared with or sold to a third party.
Q: If the financial institution doesn’t use SavvyMoney Credit Score to make loan decisions, why do we offer it?
A: SavvyMoney Credit Score can help you manage your credit so when it comes time to borrow for a big-ticket purchase—like buying a home, car or paying for college—you have a clear picture of your credit health and can qualify for the lowest possible interest rate.
Q: What if the information provided by SavvyMoney Credit Score appears to be wrong or inaccurate?
A: The SavvyMoney Credit Score makes its best effort to show you the most relevant information from your credit report. If you think that some of the information is wrong or inaccurate, we encourage you to take advantage of obtaining free credit reports from www.annualcreditreport.com and then pursuing with each bureau individually. Each bureau has its own process for correcting inaccurate information but every user can “File a Dispute” by clicking on the “Dispute” link within their SavvyMoney Credit Report. However, The Federal Trade Commission website offers step-by-step instructions on how to contact the bureaus and correct errors.
Q: There is a section on the site that features financial education articles. Why am I seeing this?
A: The educational area includes articles, written by Jean Chatzky and the SavvyMoney team, which are designed to provide helpful tips on how you can manage credit and debt wisely, plus articles written by Oakworth Capital’s chief economist, John Norris regarding financial awareness and growth from Oakworth.
Q: Will accessing SavvyMoney Credit Score ‘ping’ my credit and potentially lower my credit score?
A: No. Checking SavvyMoney Credit Score is a “soft inquiry”, which does not affect your credit score. Lenders use ‘hard inquiries’ to make decisions about your credit worthiness when you apply for loans.
Q: Does SavvyMoney offer credit report monitoring as well?
A: Yes. SavvyMoney will monitor and send email alerts when there’s been a change to your credit profile.
Q: How do I change their email address or other personal information?
A: If you access SavvyMoney program through your online banking, you have to do nothing! Your email address will get updated automatically in SavvyMoney when you update it in online banking. However, we always encourage you to inform Oakworth Capital Bank of any contact information updates.
Q: Can people use SavvyMoney on mobile devices?
A: Yes, SavvyMoney Credit Score will be available in the Oakworth Capital Bank mobile app around the month of May, so keep an eye out for it.