How does Bills Monitor work?

How does Bills Monitor work?

Bills Monitor is a feature of our Plus and Lite* memberships designed to encourage on-time payments and offer financial support when you need it most to help you pay certain bills each month on their due date.. To be able to offer you finance, we open a credit line when you join.

Bills Monitor will scan your connected bank account(s) for upcoming bill payments and if it sees that you may not have enough money in your account to cover a bill before it is due it will let you know so you can top up your account from your own funds in plenty of time.  If you're in a tight spot one month and won't have enough money in your account to cover the bill 2 days before it is due, we may offer to lend you the amount of that bill up until the day before it's due so that you can pay it and protect your credit score from being damaged.

Example: if your balance is £10 and you have a £90 bill coming up, we'd offer Bills Monitor finance of £80.

What bills are covered?

Bills Monitor protects phone, utility and subscriptions that have been paid consistently on-time for the past 6 months on or around the same date.  This is an important criteria for each bill to meet as it will ensure that we are protecting your positive payment history and will help us to make the most accurate predictions about when you will need the money to pay the bill in future.  We reassess which bills are covered every 30 days or when you disconnect or reconnect your bank account(s).

How does Bills Monitor help improve my credit score/health?

Bills Monitor targets the top two influencing factors on your credit health which are payment history (35%) and credit utilisation (30%). 

When you join we open a credit line and each month of your membership we report how you have used the credit line** and let TransUnion, Experian and Equifax know the balance and limit of your account, your ‘credit utilisation’, along with how you have repaid any borrowing.  On-time payments and low credit utilisation are positive credit behaviours that can help to both improve your score over time and unlock future credit products which is why we only offer you Bills Monitor finance when you really need it as this will help to keep your credit utilisation low.  

When do I need to pay back my withdrawal?

We will let you know the date on which we plan to automatically take payment for the amount we've topped you up by. This should align with when you are paid to give you the best chance of repaying on time to show a positive payment history. Successful collections within 30 days of the withdrawal date will be reported as on-time repayments to the Credit Reference Agencies. You are also welcome to repay manually from the app before this date if you prefer. 

If we've not been able to collect your repayment within 30 days of releasing funds to you, we will try to collect the outstanding sum automatically until it is repaid.

If your withdrawal has not been repaid within 30 days, we are obligated to accurately report this to the Credit Reference Agencies which will result in a late marker on your credit file which can damage your credit score.

*The credit line is only available to Lite members who joined on or after the 24th January 2022.

**Credit limits vary and the amount you can withdraw is based on eligible bills.