Teams from Spiegel and BR have analyzed Schufa information

Without a Schufa credit report, it is almost impossible to participate in social life: no cell phone contract, no bank loan, no paying by invoice in an online shop. But how the ratings from Germany's best-known credit agency are arrived at is not transparent - it is a trade secret.

A data analysis by Spiegel and BR now provides insights into this "black box" and shows that many people are declared risky by Schufa through no fault of their own. Spiegel Online is now reporting on the results of the research in several articles.

-> To the content at spiegel.de: Exclusive data analysis Blackbox Schufa

Data journalists from Spiegel and BR were able to evaluate a data set of more than 2.000 anonymized Schufa reports. The evaluation is not representative, but it shows that in 12 percent - or almost one in eight - of the cases examined, consumers received a critical assessment with regard to their ability to pay, although Schufa did not have any negative information such as payment defaults. In these cases, Schufa speaks of satisfactory to increased or even high risk.

The analysis of the Schufa information also shows that Schufa has only stored a small amount of data on many consumers. For almost a quarter of the people in the data set, there are a maximum of three pieces of information from their business life, such as that the person has a checking account, a credit card and a cell phone contract.

Otherwise, in these cases, Schufa only has general data such as addresses, age and gender. Nevertheless, it calculates an accurate forecast of creditworthiness. How Schufa goes about this can be declared a trade secret - this is even confirmed by a ruling by the Federal Court of Justice in 2014.

Schufa responded in writing to a query about its working methods, but did not want the letter to be quoted. A report commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection has now concluded that Schufa and other credit agencies should make their scoring procedures more transparent for consumers. At the same time, supervision of the credit agencies must be improved.

Photo: Pixabay, CC0 Public Domain / Source: spiegel.de