Schufa & Co .: Barley calls for more transparency from credit bureaus

Federal Consumer Protection Minister Katarina Barley (SPD) calls for more transparency in credit reporting agencies. "Every citizen should have the right to know what key features have been incorporated into their own credit rating and how they are weighted," Barley said.

The minister responds to the research of SPIEGEL and Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR), which has helped to better understand the evaluation process of Schufa, the largest credit institution in Germany. They showed that Schufa continues to report consumers as a matter of no-fault risk. Banks, online retailers and telephone service providers use ratings before entering into new contracts, and apartment owners often require new tenants.

In addition, the question of what criteria are used for evaluation, according to Barley employ the ministry. "As part of a possible regulation of rating companies, we will examine to what extent they may be required to pay attention to non-discrimination when calculating their scores," the minister said.

Berlin economist Gert Wagner, a member of the Council of Consumer Experts and who advises the Ministry of Consumer Protection, also advocated stricter rules. He told SPIEGEL that the disclosure of the features included in the calculation and their weighting did not jeopardize the trade secrets of the credit reporting agencies. "The underlying database is not published, not even the software interface with banks and dealers," Wagner said.

SPIEGEL's and BR's research also confirmed known problems, such as the fact that people are not recognized after a move. "This process is subject to mistakes," says Wagner, "you can not blame the Schufa." The Expert Council recommends a kind of quality control in this context: the extent to which the attribution of information to specific people works well.

The new Federal Commissioner for Data Protection, Ulrich Kelber (SPD), said that with respect to consumer badessment, it must be clear what data would have led to a definitive result. And "in the end, the quality of the results must also be transparent," Kelber told BR.

The Greens of the Bundestag have described as "scandalous" the results of research carried out by SPIEGEL and BR. Kestantin von Notz, vice-chairman of the parliamentary group in the Bundestag, and consumer spokesperson Tabea Rößner criticized Schufa's "too few, mediocre or even neglected databases". It was necessary to examine whether the legal framework of the credit rating should be strengthened.

Disclosure: Schufa's competitor, Arvato, belongs to the Bertelsmann group. His daughter, the magazine publisher Gruner + Jahr, participates in 25.5% of SPIEGEL-Verlag. Whatever the case may be, the SPIEGEL report is published independently.