It’s just a measure of how safe you are to lend money to.
Except that it now ends up getting (ab)used for things that have nothing to do with lending money, like vetting job applicants and apartment renters. It’s slowly creeping its way toward a Chinese-style ‘social credit score’, except in some ways even worse – your social score will only be affected by financial stability.
They justify it for job applicants as an overall meaaure of responsibility. They justify it for renters as a measure for how likely you are to pay rent on time vs not paying any rent and needing to be evicted.
It’s just a measure of how safe you are to lend money to.
You have systematically proven you will pay them back. Hence your score is good.
Except that it now ends up getting (ab)used for things that have nothing to do with lending money, like vetting job applicants and apartment renters. It’s slowly creeping its way toward a Chinese-style ‘social credit score’, except in some ways even worse – your social score will only be affected by financial stability.
They’ve been doing that for decades. I had a video store run my credit to be a manager over twenty years ago.
Oh, and my credit was garbage then and it didn’t matter. Apparently they were looking for high debt (higher chance to steal i guess).
Just in america. You can’t just random credit check anyone here in norway if it dowsnt have to do with borrowing money.
They justify it for job applicants as an overall meaaure of responsibility. They justify it for renters as a measure for how likely you are to pay rent on time vs not paying any rent and needing to be evicted.
renting is competitive in some hcol/mcol area, it make sense they would ask you for credit score or INCOME level.
And then they go on to complain about all the homeless people they see…