WASHINGTON—WalletHub has introduced a new “financial intelligence tool” that it is offering free to consumers on its website that may offer some insights to credit unions on what their members are coming to expect.
Once consumers register on the site, they gain access to:
- Full TransUnion credit reports
- Customized savings alerts
- Credit improvement tips
- VantageScore 3.0 credit scores
- 24/7 credit monitoring
Credit score data is updated daily, WalletHub said.
“Financial intelligence is hugely important for consumers in a post-Great Recession environment where identity theft is our fastest-growing crime, lenders are being more judicious with account approval and the economic recovery has left many behind,” WalletHub CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou said. “Our goal is to use technology to empower people to make the best possible financial decisions in the simplest, most time-efficient manner.”
Papadimitriou explained that with the local markets for loans and deposits expanding nationally via the Internet, making the right choice of a financial product takes more analysis and time.
“We also operate CardHub, and we are seeing that consumers in their choices of credit cards on average leave around $400 a year on the table by making sub-optimal credit card decisions,” said Papadimitriou, noting that WalletHub will deliver “unbiased” advice on product choices to enrolled consumers based on their personal finances. “Financial products have become so much more complex, as has choice, that consumers often don’t have the time to fully understand them and therefore are leaving money on the table.”
Papadimitriou added that money consistently ranks among people’s biggest stressors.
“We are essentially building the brain of a financial advisor and offering it to consumers for free,” said Papadimitriou. “Consumers need a dynamic, knowledgeable assistant to keep pace in today’s personal finance landscape.”