The Schufa subsidiary Bonify arranges Schufa-free loans for people in need of money – and thus shows them ways to circumvent the Schufa. An offer that met with criticism.
Henrik Schmidt can only wonder. The head of Hamburg’s municipal debt and insolvency advice has just looked at the website of the Schufa subsidiary Bonify. There “kangaroo” and “ninja loans” are offered, and a “Swiss loan” is advertised. All offers have one thing in common: the Schufa should not notice anything about the lending.
The owner of the Bonify brand, the Berlin start-up Forteil GmbH, is now owned by Germany’s largest credit agency. The Wiesbaden company bought the small company last year. She was particularly attractive because of an innovative finance app – but she has also been providing loans for a long time.
The Bonify website promises that you don’t need Schufa information to get money, and these loan agreements would not be stored for years in the Wiesbaden-based company’s database, as usual, where data on millions of other loan agreements by German consumers are already stored find consumers.
“Something quirky”
Debt advisor Schmidt finds it “a bit bizarre” that Bonify, as a Schufa subsidiary, brokers such loans. In addition, the interest rates sometimes seem extremely high – up to 16 percent. This is problematic for his clientele, who are highly indebted and could hardly ever service such loans.
In fact, the Schufa subsidiary shows people in need of money quite aggressively how they can escape the otherwise strict view of the parent company. “Jump to your credit,” says the “kangaroo credit,” for example. Borrowing is possible, “even with negative credit bureau entries, even if old loans are still running, even if others have already said ‘no’.”
Such loans are offered to consumers who may already be over-indebted. Only if you search the Bonify website a little more thoroughly will you find warnings that show the full risk of the contracts. With the “Swiss loan” there is a “high risk of over-indebtedness,” it says: Since the loan “is not included in the Schufa file, the possibility of over-indebtedness as a consumer increases.”
Fighter against over-indebtedness?
The Bonify mother Schufa otherwise likes to present itself as a fighter against over-indebtedness. Accompanied by an extensive press campaign, it regularly publishes a “Risk and Credit Compass”. It contains a “private debt index” developed by the Schufa – which in its most recent edition identified Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony-Anhalt and Bremen as the federal states with the most over-indebted people.
In addition, Schufa CEO Tanja Birkholz herself had expressly warned against Schufa-free loans – but already at the end of 2021, before her company bought Bonify. These are “a marketing gimmick to attract people, and with some almost (with) fraudulent intentions,” Birkholz said at the time on the “Financial Flow” YouTube channel.
She expressly referred to debt counseling services that warned against such loans. If you didn’t get a loan from other banks, then the price of such credit bureau-free loans was “probably too high”, which could “really drive the consumer into a difficult situation”.
Higher debt, higher interest rates
For consumers in need, uncomplicated lending without a Schufa check could be tempting, but it could lead to further problems, says debt counselor Schmidt. The interest rates for such loans offered by Bonify start at 3.9 percent per year, but go up to almost 16 percent.
“To be honest, I can hardly imagine that someone with only sufficient creditworthiness really gets a low interest rate there,” says Schmidt. “That means it will probably move in a higher interest rate range regularly.”
Daniel Mittler from the “Finanzwende” association is also skeptical about the fact that Schufa presents itself as a fighter against over-indebtedness and thus as a sort of consumer advocate: “It is definitely not right to pretend to be a consumer advocate and in fact to continue a business model which only increases one’s own power.”
“More marketing than reality”?
The Schufa emphasizes in a statement to the NDRthat Bonify “is an independent company even after the purchase by Schufa”. In addition, credit bureau-free loans are “more marketing than reality,” it says in a reply to the NDR. “Because there is no lending without a credit check. Loans may only be granted if there are no doubts about creditworthiness.”
However, Schufa did not comment on what it means if loans are granted without the “very important information” from the company’s own database, according to Schufa boss Tanja Birkholz. Bonify boss Andreas Bermig explained that the banks that grant the loans are carefully selected and that they also “look very carefully at what user feedback we get and what ratings there are for them.”
“We deliberately do not leave Bonify users who have to take out expensive financing at a certain point in time alone, but point out to the user as soon as possible that they can now tackle cheaper debt restructuring.”
In any case, Schufa boss Birkholz had recommended consumers in the “Finanzfluss” video: “Don’t google for ‘credit without Schufa’, but rather go to debt advice, to consultants who have a lot of experience.” In any case, over-indebted people would get a clear recommendation from the Hamburg debt counselor Henrik Schmidt. He could “always advise against accepting such loan offers.”