There are two main credit bureaus in Canada – Equifax and TransUnion. Until recently, it was nearly impossible to get a free credit score/report. Thankfully, many free services have popped up recently to help you to do that. Most recently, you can now get a free CIBC credit score through their mobile app.
Free Credit Score Canada – Credit Karma
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend starting with CreditKarma, which will display your score and report for free. They give you only your TransUnion score.
Additional Reading: Free Credit Score with Credit Karma!
There are two types of scenarios when companies access your information. A hard inquiry occur only when an institution needs to make some kind of a lending decision, whether it’s a new mortgage, credit card, or even post-paid phone plan. This will decrease your score generally by a few points, and will show on your report for up to 24 months. If checking your own credit, however, only a soft pull occurs. This has no effect on your credit score at all.
Free CIBC Credit Score with Borrowell
You can now get a free CIBC credit score. CIBC has partnered with Borrowell, a personal loan startup. The credit score pulls Equifax, which means for CIBC clients, it’s extremely easy to get your credit scores from both credit bureaus.
Free CIBC Credit Score Canada
You can check your Equifax score online on the iOS or Android app by accessing the side menu and scrolling down. I do question why CIBC, with all their assets, couldn’t come up with an in-house solution of their own (probably for a lower cost).
Nonetheless, this is a very simple and straight-forward process, which is fantastic.
Official press release – Free CIBC Credit Score with Borrowell
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Ok, TD Canada, follow them and offers your clients a free score as well!
Thanks for the Credit Karma link. Interesting to discover that my wife’s credit score is way higher than mine and we are joint on everything except for a few very low balance credit cards.
Maybe she has a higher limit on some cards, or a longer history with one?
Actually not – but she has a really low balance at the moment as all our upcoming travel is on my cards and has not cleared yet (monthly balance clearing).
I did discover a card on my credit report that I have no knowledge of. Carrying a $500 limit and no balance but hanging around since 2006. Very odd.
My oldest card is from the 70’s while hers is from the 90’s. But the list of cards that I have held and cancelled is quite impressive – I had forgotten how many different AMEX cards there have been over the years. Guess not eligible for any more bonuses 😉
So, no dice for non-CIBC customers I assume?
Nope.
When uploading the CIBC app on your mobile just make sure you have norton internet on your device. A few days ago a CIBC online banking app had been sharing my private information with a third party in India without my knowledge. Just be careful, CIBC as a bank has a poor reputation with customer appreciation and does not recognise loyalty. I swear the attitude they have toward customers is not to do business but out to get you. The list is endless of their malpractice the classic example their inability to interpret time lines. I wonder which financial school in Canada that does not teach about timelines. A bunch of customer ended up get penalized for paying late then i did some digging. The findings included that CIBC employees find it a challenge to deal with timelines so they just end up double billing clients. In addition to that they go straight to mess up your credit score after their incompetency. Good luck being with CIBC, its going to take time before they restore consumer confidence.