Loqbox CEO & Co-founder Tom shares his thoughts on the UK credit system on LBC

"The goal is building better borrowers, not just better credit scores”

Our CEO and Co-founder, Tom Eyre got real about the reality that so many people across the UK are quietly living through right now, in a recent opinion piece for LBC. 

He shone a light on the difficulties young people face when it comes to juggling bills, paying rent, saving money, and keeping a handle on their credit. All while feeling like meaningful progress is out of reach. 

“We’ve quietly built a system that punishes ordinary mistakes for years, while failing to reward everyday responsibility”

Why does progress feel so challenging?

Tom’s article captures something we see play out in real life every single day. Sometimes we can be doing everything “right” and still feel like we’re taking two steps forward and one step back. 

Whether that’s simply by missing one repayment only to see the mark stay on your report for six years, or living within your means but ending up with a ‘thin’ credit file. 

Most of us have had to learn as we go when it comes to personal finance in adulthood, and so often, the everyday financial wins don’t get recognised. With the system we work with, we see this quiet progress overlooked all the time:

• The payments that go out on time every month
• The account you made a conscious effort not to dip into 
• The habits you’ve built around your lifestyle (and stuck to)

“Add rising rents, insecure work, student loans and the normalisation of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), and you have a generation whose ‘everyday’ debt is eroding not just their bank balances but their financial resilience.”

It could be easy to feel bogged down by the situation, but Tom believes the key is “to make credit scoring radically more transparent”, so people can understand the system they are in and have the confidence to handle it. 

Where else does this confidence come from? 

Stacking small, consistent habits 

Financial progress doesn’t always look dramatic or instantly rewarding as people expect. 

“It’s almost never about a quick fix; it’s about stacking consistent habits over time.” 

Those small and gradual decisions all help to build a sense of control; to check your credit report regularly, to set up affordable payments or to build your rainy day savings. 

And by rewarding people for this everyday positive behaviour and treating financial education “as an ongoing adult process rooted in how people think and feel about money”, Tom says we’re far more likely to build better borrowers. Not just better credit scores. 

We are so proud of Tom for spotlighting this truth: that most people aren’t getting money wrong in the way they sometimes feel they are.

They’re doing the right things, consistently, within a system that doesn’t always reflect or reward that effort straight away. You’re probably already making meaningful progress by showing up for your finances (even just by reading this article!), so kudos to you. 

If you’d like to read Tom’s article in full, you can check it out here.