New to the UK

This does not mean that a person’s credit score is automatically set to zero when they enter the country. Credit scores do vary between credit reference agencies. The underlying problem is that overseas credit histories are not generally transferred into UK credit files, leaving providers of credit with limited domestic information on which to assess an application.

This can affect recent immigrants and returning expatriates. It can also affect people who have lived in the UK for several years but have not yet used products that generate the information typically recorded on a credit file.

Daisy, who moved to the UK from Nigeria, described the difference between the two financial systems:

Without sufficient UK data, people can encounter difficulties accessing services involving credit or identity checks, including mobile phone contracts, broadband and rental properties. The problem is not necessarily that they have demonstrated poor financial behaviour, but that they have not yet generated the information the system expects to see.

But credit building products are only part of the answer. A modern financial system should be capable of recognising responsible behaviour across different forms of work, housing and financial lives that cross borders. That means continuing to improve the appropriate use of alternative data, recognising regular commitments, where relevant, and designing assessment processes that reflect lives that do not follow a conventional pattern.