One of the often-told myths about the Schufa credit agency is that Schufa is a government agency. But that is wrong. The credit agency is owned by banks and companies – and has always been a company that wants to make money. The figures for 2023 published on Wednesday make this more than clear. According to them, the company, headquartered in Wiesbaden, generated sales of 276.1 million euros. That is 3.3 percent more than in the previous year. Schufa AG was also able to increase earnings before interest and taxes by more than five percent, now amounting to more than 78 million euros. The entire Schufa Group was also able to generate more sales. In addition to the actual Schufa credit agency, this also includes start-ups, including Forteil GmbH, which is behind the Bonify app. Together, the group generated sales of 283 million euros.
The majority of the income therefore goes to the Schufa credit agency. This is the largest of its kind in Germany and has stored data on more than 60 million people. From this data, it calculates the so-called Schufa score, which is between zero and 100 and is intended to indicate whether someone is creditworthy. According to Schufa, the higher the number, the higher the probability that a person will pay off their contract or loan. In business, many banks, companies and online retailers use the score when people take out a contract or loan with them. If the score is too low when a contract is concluded, many companies reject potential customers because they are afraid of default. This makes the Schufa score very powerful in Germany.
More than 85 million euros in sales with private individuals
The current figures show that the business with these reports is still the most important division of the credit agency. Schufa makes 240 million euros, and thus the vast majority of its turnover, in the area of ”creditworthiness”. The credit agency earns money here primarily through banks and companies. They pay the Wiesbaden company a small amount for each piece of information about a person. This is usually only a few cents per piece of information. But due to the sheer volume of requests, this quickly adds up to millions. Schufa also earns money from private customers, as the figures make clear. More than 85 million euros of turnover comes from business with private individuals. This includes subscriptions and so-called tenant reports. The latter are often requested by landlords when moving into a new apartment. They are intended to show that the future tenant has paid his bills and loans dutifully so far and will presumably do so in the future. Schufa currently charges around 30 euros for such a tenant report.
In addition to the creditworthiness area, Schufa also offers products in the areas of compliance, fraud prevention and identification. These areas contribute relatively little to sales, but some are growing strongly. In the compliance area, Schufa was able to record a whopping increase in sales of more than 87 percent, from 2.2 to 4.2 million euros. The other areas also increased compared to the previous year. Schufa boss Tanja Birkholz is likely to be satisfied with the result. The only downside: the group, which also includes other companies, earned almost nine percent less than in the previous year despite higher sales. Schufa itself cites the fact that it invested a lot of money in restructuring Schufa as the reason. Boss Birkholz had already announced a so-called “transparency offensive” a few years ago and has since been campaigning for the credit agency to explain itself more clearly. In this context, Schufa also bought the Bonify app at the end of 2022, in which customers can view their Schufa score, among other things. An official purchase price was not communicated. However, the acquisition is said to have cost Schufa a double-digit million amount.