Is the Schufa “credit rating” illegal? New judgments

Transparency instead of “Blackbox”: Consumers should get full insight from Schufa in the future how their reviews come about to credit. The information agency has simplified its so -called score, which provides information about the creditworthiness – and promises: even laypersons can recalculate it without much effort.

The Schufa actually voluntarily proclaimed this transparency offensive. But two judgments could now also put legal pressure.

The Cologne Higher Regional Court judged: Negative entries that are considered to be done must be deleted immediately and not after three months by Schufa.

A judgment of the Bamberg Regional Court could make even larger waves: According to this, the automated scoring system is fundamentally unlawful. A plaintiff was therefore awarded 1,000 euros in compensation.

How exactly does Schufa work and what do the new judgments mean for the credit check? The most important questions and answers:

Such scores should predict the payment behavior of consumers. The higher the value, the greater the creditworthiness. Anyone who often pays invoices unpunctually and receives reminders will be rated worse.

The Schufa 12 has selected more than 250 possible criteria, which in their view are most understandable and at the same time provide the most reliable statement about solvency:

“Every criterion that flows into the score receives points that can be easily counted together and reflect the weighting in the score,” explains Schufa. “Consumers can easily understand which criteria can influence their personal score such as influence and change their scores more easily.”

Depending on how many of the 100 to 999 points get together, the solvency in the new score is classified as “excellent”, “good”, “acceptable”, “sufficient” or “insufficient”.

For consumers, it should be understandable how the score comes about and what influences the value positively or negatively. With a personal data cockpit, Schufa wants to enable people to simulate their personal score at any time with their data: What influence would it have if I use another installment loan? How does my credit rating change when I cancel one or more credit cards?

The calculations of the information agency based in Wiesbaden are an important benchmark for banks, online retailers, mobile operators, car dealerships and energy suppliers. You want to know how your customers’ payment standards are before you hand over contracts. Companies, but also individuals such as landlords, can obtain information. You do not receive a specific list of the customer’s obligations, but its score value. This has an impact on whether and on what conditions contracts are concluded with consumers.

This cannot be answered in general. Schufa argues that the score is only a component. She herself does not make any decisions about the allocation of loans or the conclusion of a cell phone contract. The information agency supports its contractual partners – which includes banks and savings banks, mail order companies and energy suppliers – with information.

The decision for or against a business ultimately makes the company with which a consumer wants to conclude a contract. A bank, for example, asks a customer’s credit request to the Schufa’s creditworthiness. The bank enriches this data with its own information: for example, data on income and expenses and assets of the customer. Finally, lending also depends on the risk of risk of the money house.

The “Protection Association for General Credit Association”, founded in 1927, receives information from its contractual partners information about the opening of checking accounts, the issue of credit cards, the conclusion of leasing contracts and loans.

The Schufa collects negative information, for example, from public registers such as debtor directories. In addition, the information agency stores personal data such as name, date of birth and address, but has no information about the income of a person.

According to the latest information, Schufa has information about 68 million people in Germany. To more than 90 percent, “exclusively positive information is stored”.

The information agency explains: “Since people’s consumer behavior changes, the score formula must be regularly adjusted.” For example, the number of mini -loans has increased significantly. In addition, consumers switched their house bank more often than ten years ago because they regularly compare comparative sporting terms.

Consumer advocates have long been calling for more transparency from Schufa. Again and again the information egg had to be accused of being a “black box” because it is not disclosed how the score is calculated exactly.

In the dispute over the question of how the values ​​of credit information such as Schufa arise, the European Court of Justice strengthened the position of consumers in February 2025: The person concerned has the right to find out how the decision relating to them came about.

The procedure must be described in such a way that the data subject can understand which of their personal data in the context of automated decision-making in the type “, the ECJ clarified (legal matter C-203/22).

Little at first. In the future, the judgment of the Bamberg Regional Court will no longer only automatically create its creditworthiness scores. This also applies to the query of banks, companies or landlords. The score may no longer be communicated if it has been created automatically – Stand now. Because the Schufa has appealed against the judgment. A subsequent decision by the Higher Regional Court could tip over this.