This free service offered by CME FCU is to help you understand your current credit score, give you access to your full credit report and show you how you can improve it, provide credit monitoring alerts, and see ways you can save money on new and existing loans with us.
Q. Is the credit report I receive through SavvyMoney any different from a normal one?
A. The credit report found on SavvyMoney provides you with all the information you would find on your credit file including a list of open loans, 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 30 days and displayed on the accounts overview page in online banking. You may also click “refresh score” as frequently as every day by navigating to the detailed SavvyMoney site from within online banking.
Q: Will accessing my credit score affect my credit and potentially lower my credit score?
A: No. Checking your score through SavvyMoney counts as a “soft inquiry”, which does not affect your credit score. Lenders use “hard inquiries” to make decisions about your creditworthiness when you apply for loans.
Q. How does the credit score provided by SavvyMoney 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 the credit score generated by SavvyMoney be shared with CME Federal Credit Union?
A: No, your SavvyMoney Credit Score is a free service to help you understand your credit health, how you make improvements in your score and ways you can save money on your loans CME Federal Credit Union.
Q: How is the financial information provided in SavvyMoney kept secure?
A: Our partner, 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: What if the information provided on the SavvyMoney site appears to be wrong or inaccurate?
A: SavvyMoney 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 both CME Federal Credit Union product offers and financial education articles. Why am I seeing this?
A: Based on your credit information, you may receive offers from CME Federal Credit Union on products that may be of interest to you. In most cases, these offers may have lower interest rates than the products you already have. The educational articles, written by Jean Chatzky and the SavvyMoney team, are designed to provide helpful tips on how you can manage credit and debt wisely.
Q. How do members change their email address or other personal information?
A: If you access SavvyMoney 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 us of any contact information updates.
Q: Can members use SavvyMoney on mobile devices?
A: SavvyMoney is available and accessible via our mobile app.