Clearscore announces ‘Credit for Key Workers’ initiative as UK’s key workers face sharp-end of COVID crisis

ClearScore, the UK’s leading free credit score and credit marketplace, today announces the launch of its Credit For Key Workers initiative, designed to support the financial needs of Britain’s key workers – the millions of people who are keeping the country running during the coronavirus outbreak.

To support the UK’s key workers during this time, ClearScore is working with its lending partners to develop exclusive and discounted-rate products that will be available on ClearScore’s credit marketplace for people who can verify that they are employed in key worker sectors.

Concerns about the pandemic’s impact on the economy and knock-on effect on employment have resulted in many important credit lenders withdrawing products from the market, meaning that the average person in the UK now has access to 59% fewer credit products than before the start of the crisis.

Key workers still need to travel to work, spend whilst they are out of the house and run their normal lives under significant extra physical and emotional pressure at work. Despite this heroic effort, access to credit has been severely limited.

By verifying their employment status as a key worker and through the use of open banking, payslips or other methods, ClearScore and its lending partners will be able to show a number of exclusive credit products designed specifically for those key workers in need of financial assistance during this critical time, allowing them to worry less about their finances and to continue fighting Covid-19.

The initiative will also enable lenders to provide credit with confidence that the people they are lending to are highly unlikely to lose their jobs in the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. ClearScore is pleased to already be working with a number of lenders on this key worker initiative including Zopa, MyCommunityFinance, Salary Finance, CarFinance 247, and Zuto among others.

Data from ClearScore’s 9 million UK users shows that demand for credit products has risen by 13.8% amongst the UK’s key workers compared to demand from the general population since the country went into lockdown on 15th March 2020.

Justin Basini, CEO and Co-founder of ClearScore says: “Since the 15th March, we have seen credit being withdrawn from the market by lenders without taking into account the differences between key workers and the rest of the population. These key workers are supporting us all through the COVID-19 crisis, and yet our data shows that credit is being withheld at a time when the demand has increased.

“With the additional data about employment status, we have seen a number of lenders develop specific products for key workers and we expect many more to come to the table in the coming weeks. This will make a real difference to some of the heroes on the frontline of the nation’s fight against COVID-19.”

Jaidev Janardana, CEO of challenger bank Zopa says: “We at Zopa are delighted to be able to support key workers as part of this new initiative from ClearScore. Whilst we will of course still be making credit decisions using the data available on people’s credit reports, the additional information we are receiving from ClearScore on individuals’ employment status will help us lend to more key workers in the coming weeks. This will inevitably relieve the financial burden experienced by many key workers at this time, and we’re proud to play a role in helping society’s most valuable workers with their finances.”