Credit Buider Terms

These are the legal terms that apply to you and Wollit (Wollit/us/we) when you use the Credit Builder Service on the App.

These terms apply to you and Wollit together with our general terms and conditions, App terms of use and privacy policy.

Some key things you need to know

We cannot guarantee your credit score will improve, nor can we guarantee how long it will take to see any improvement, as this depends upon a variety of other factors, such as your management of other financial commitments, which are outside of our control.
If you are using the Credit Builder Service to improve your credit score but you end your plan early, you could end up with a lower credit score than you started with.
The Credit Builder Service doesn't give any investment or financial advice. It's not the right service for you if that's what you're looking for.
The Credit Builder Service is unregulated and this means you will not, as a consumer, have protections that typically come with a regulated product.
It can be common for credit scores to dip slightly when any new credit account is opened. This dip is usually minor and temporary. As you make on-time payments and demonstrate responsible credit management, your score should recover and head in the right direction.
You'll buy your chosen plan on credit allowing you to spread the cost over 12 monthly payments. We'll report your monthly payments to credit reference agencies who'll add that information to your credit file which, over time, will build your positive credit history
When your plan comes to an end it will automatically renew for a further 12 months unless you tell us you don’t want to renew your plan. We'll send you a reminder beforehand telling you what you need to do.

How to contact us

If you have any questions or need to contact us please email us at [email protected].

1. Who can use the Credit Builder Service?

Everyone can use the Credit Builder Service but you should think carefully about whether it's the right service for you.

The aim of this service is to help you build your positive credit history over time and, in doing so, improve your credit score.

There are some factors which will impact your chance of being accepted for credit by lenders even if you use the Credit Builder Service. This is because even if you build your credit score using the Credit Builder Service, lenders may still not accept your application for credit due to these factors being on your credit file.

This will be the case for you if you:

have any late debt or bill payments;
had one or more county court judgments in the last 12 months;
have been subject to an individual voluntary arrangement or debt management plan in the last 12 months; or
are going through bankruptcy.

2. How does the Credit Builder Service work?

To use the Credit Builder Service you will be asked to choose which plan you would like to buy. See "What plans can I choose from?" below for more information on the plans you can choose from.

Once you've chosen a plan, you'll enter into an interest-free loan agreement with us to cover the total cost of it. You'll pay off the total cost of your plan over 12 monthly payments until your loan is fully repaid. These are your monthly payments.

We'll report to credit reference agencies that you have entered into a loan agreement with us and each month when you pay your monthly payments.

The credit reference agencies will record this information on your credit file. Over time, as you pay your monthly payments, the intention is that this helps to build your credit history as you make your payments in full and on time. Your credit history is the single biggest factor affecting your credit score because it's evidence that you can borrow money and repay it over time.

Your loan agreement will be an "exempt" credit agreement under section 60F(2) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) Order 2001. This means that a piece of legislation called the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (CCA) doesn’t apply to the loan agreement it is and you won't receive the same consumer protections you would if the CCA applied to the agreement.

3. What plans can I choose from?

There are a number of plans you can choose from. You should think carefully about which plan is right for you and make sure you're comfortable that you can pay the monthly payment.

To see the plans you can currently choose from please see here.

4. Can I change plans?

Yes, you can choose to upgrade your plan at any time. You can do this by letting us know in the App. The price of your plan will then increase, and we will change the monthly payments for the remainder of your loan agreement to reflect that.

Note though that we can’t extend the duration of your loan agreement. This means that you should make sure that you can afford to pay off the monthly payments for the remainder of your loan agreement before you upgrade your plan.

5. How do I pay my monthly payment? When is it due?

Your monthly payment must be paid on or before your repayment date.

Your first monthly payment will be due on the date you enter into the loan agreement and your plan starts.

After that, your monthly payment will be due on the same date each month until you've paid off your loan in full. We call this your repayment date.

You can check your repayment date in the App.

If your repayment date falls on a non-working day, your repayment date will be moved to the next working day.

If your repayment date can't be the same date on a particular month, e.g. if it's a leap year, then your repayment date will be the closest date which falls before your usual one.

You may make a monthly payment (or payments) early. If you choose to do this then you'll need to tell us, and we'll apply the prepayment amount to your relevant future payment(s).

To collect your monthly payment, we'll ask you to provide a continuous payment authority (CPA) so that each monthly payment can be collected from your chosen bank account.

A CPA is a recurring payment made on your chosen card that you authorise to be taken each month automatically as a way of paying your monthly payment. Unlike a direct debit, a CPA is not covered by any guarantee although you'll be able to cancel it at any time through the App or by contacting your bank.

We may provide additional payment methods to make paying your monthly payment easier for you.

6. Can I pause my monthly payments?

You can ask us to pause your monthly payments. If we agree then we will pause your monthly payment and will tell you how long we are willing to do that for. We will not report this as a missed payment to the credit reference agencies.

7. What happens if I don’t pay my monthly payment?

If you're worried about not being able to pay your monthly payment please contact us as soon as possible and let us know. If we do not hear from you beforehand, we'll always try to contact you if we don’t receive your monthly payment.

We'll try and collect your monthly payment from your chosen bank account daily for 14 days following your missed payment.

If we can't collect your monthly payment within the 14 day period following your missed payment, we can end your plan early. See Can Wollit end my plan early? below for details of when we may do this.

8. Do you charge late fees?

No, we don't charge any late payment fees.

9. How long will my plan last for?

Your plan will last for no longer than 12 months.

10. What happens when my plan comes to an end?

When your plan comes to an end it will automatically renew for a further 12 months unless you tell us that you don't want to renew your plan.

You'll need to tell us at least 14 days before your current plan ends if you don’t want it to automatically renew.

We'll send you a reminder four weeks before your plan comes to an end to remind you of your renewal date and let you know how you can notify us if you don’t want to renew your plan.

If you forget to do this and your plan automatically renews you'll be able to cancel your new plan for up to 14 days. This won't cost you anything and you can do this either in the App or by contacting us by email.

11. Can I cancel my plan?

Yes, you can cancel your plan via the App or by contacting us by email.

If you cancel within 14 days of buying your plan:

you'll be refunded any monthly payments that you have paid
your loan agreement with us will end
we'll take no further monthly payments
we’ll unwind your plan with the credit referencing agencies

If you cancel after 14 days of buying your plan:

you'll not be refunded any monthly payments that you have paid
we'll take no further monthly payments from you
your loan agreement with us will end
we'll report your loan as settled when we report to the credit agencies, however cancelling your plan will not have the same positive impact on your credit score that completing your plan would have.

Please note that whilst you are able to cancel your plan it's common for scores to dip slightly when you take out a loan, so cancelling your plan early could leave you with a lower credit score than when you started.

12. Can you end my plan early?

Yes, we can end your plan early if:

you've not paid your monthly payments and we're unable to collect it within 14 days of your repayment date.
you've seriously (or we suspect you've seriously) breached these terms, our general terms and conditions or App terms of use.
If we end your plan early this may not affect your use of the App (unless you have breached our general terms and conditions or App terms of use).

If we stop you from using the App or Credit Builder Service, you must:

stop all activities permitted under these terms, including your use of the Credit Builder Service
immediately destroy all copies of any pages from the App in regards to the Credit Builder Service which you've downloaded or otherwise stored

If we're unable to continue to provide the Credit Builder Service, we'll provide you with 30 days' notice that your plan is ending. We'll not charge you any further monthly payments and report your loan as settled to the credit reference agencies.

13. Rent Reporting

Rent Reporting is a feature of the Credit Builder Service where we can report your monthly rent payments to credit reference agencies. This shows them that you are paying your monthly rent payments regularly and reliably, which can also have positive effects on your credit file.

How does rent reporting work?

If you'd like to use this feature then you'll need to set up and authorise Rent Reporting through your Wollit account in the App.

To set up Rent Reporting you'll need to tell us on which date you pay rent and how much you pay and other relevant information. We'll then check your personal bank account to try and confirm if the rent payment you've told us about has come out of your account. To report on your rent payments, we access your bank account data, for details on how we do this, please see "How does Wollit access and use my bank account data?" below.

Once we've confirmed the rental payments been made via your personal bank account or other methods, we'll report it to the credit reference agencies. If we can't confirm that the rental payment has been made then we won't report this to the credit reference agencies and it is not treated as a missed payment.

Can I switch rent reporting off?

Yes, you can ask us to stop Rent Reporting through your Wollit account in the App and we'll stop reporting your rent payments to the credit reference agencies.

14. How do I make a complaint?

If you've got a complaint about our Credit Builder Service you can contact us by emailing [email protected]. We'll aim to respond to any complaints within 7 business days.

15. My personal details have changed, what should I do?

You should let us know as soon as you can if your personal details change.

Personal details include your name, address, contact number, email address and your status as a UK resident.

16. What credit reference agencies do you report to?

We report to three UK credit reference agencies: TransUnion, Experian and Equifax.

Full details of the data we may share with credit reference agencies is set out in our privacy policy.

Wollit and the credit reference agencies we use will make sure your information is treated in accordance with United Kingdom data protection law, so you can have peace of mind that it will be kept secure and confidential and your information won't be used for prospect marketing purposes.

17. How does Wollit access and use my bank account data?

When you agree to Wollit's general terms and conditions you agree to give us a read-only connection to your main personal bank account held in the UK. This is your personal account.

Your personal account should be the account you consider to be your main account in the UK. This means that it's the bank account your income is paid into and what you use for your day to day spending.

If you decide to use a different account as your personal account then you should let us know by updating your details in the App as soon as possible. If you don’t do this, some features of the App, including the Credit Builder Service, won't work as they're supposed too.

TrueLayer consent

When you agree to Wollit's general terms and conditions you agree to and provide your explicit consent and instruction for us and our supplier TrueLayer to access, retrieve and use your personal account data.

In the interests of security, we'll ask you to renew your consent periodically. You may also withdraw your consent for our read-only access to your personal account at any time.

If you withdraw or fail to renew your consent when requested, we'll be unable to continue to provide some elements of the Credit Builder Service and such provision of the service will be suspended immediately unless and until you provide consent.

18. Using the Credit Builder Service

You can only use the App and Credit Builder Service for your own personal use and must not:

do anything that may disable, modify or harm the Wollit App or the Credit Builder Service
use the Wollit App or the Credit Builder Service for any unlawful activity, unlawful purpose, or in any manner inconsistent with these terms, or act fraudulently or maliciously, or in any manner that may cause offence or harm to any person, or which may infringe the intellectual property or other rights of Wollit or any third party.

19. Keeping your Wollit App safe

You'll access the Credit Builder Service through the App.

If you think your App account might've been compromised in some way or don't recognise activity on your account, please contact us as soon as possible.

You must not allow any other person to access the Credit Builder Service on your behalf. You must treat your access and authentication details as confidential, and you must not disclose these to any other person.

If we reasonably suspect or become aware that you've been the subject of fraud or an operational security incident, we may disable some or all of the functionality of your Wollit App account until such time as we believe that the suspected incident has been resolved.

We've got the right to disable any Wollit App user, identification code or password, whether chosen by you or allocated by us, at any time, if in our opinion you haven't complied with the above.

20. How does Wollit use my personal data?

Your personal data will be processed in accordance with our privacy policy.

Under these terms you agree that we may contact you for the purposes of providing information in relation to the Credit Builder Service by sending an email to the to the email address you've given us, by SMS message or telephone call to the mobile number you've given us, by post to the mailing address you've given us, or by push notification to your mobile device (where you consent to receive these).

21. Changing these terms

We can make changes to these terms and the plans we offer from time to time, for example to:

reflect changes in law or best practice
make necessary changes to the features of the Credit Builder Service
make additions or improvements to the Credit Builder Service which are in your favour
make necessary improvements or minor technical adjustments to the App or provision of the Credit Builder Service (such as running an update to ensure the continued provision of the Credit Builder Service, or to address a security threat)
correct any error or omission in any information or document issued by us provided that any the correction does not materially affect these terms

We'll let you know when we make any changes to these terms by email.

22. How we can use our rights under these terms

We may transfer our rights or obligations under these terms to a third party. We'll let you know if we're going to do this in advance. You can't transfer your rights or obligations under these terms to anyone else.

Nothing in these terms is intended to, nor shall create, any right enforceable by any third party and the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 shall not otherwise apply to these terms.

If any part of these terms is or becomes invalid, illegal or unenforceable it shall be deemed modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it valid, legal and enforceable. If this isn't possible, the relevant term or part-term shall be deemed deleted. Any modification to or deletion of a term or part-term under this clause won't affect the validity and enforceability of the rest of these terms.

We may choose not to enforce any of these terms, or we may delay enforcing them. This won't mean that we aren't able to enforce the same term later.

23. Disclaimers

We've taken reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy, currency and availability, correctness and completeness of the information contained on the App, including the Credit Builder Service. However, we can't guarantee that:

the App or any content, document or feature of Credit Builder Service will be error-free or uninterrupted
any defects will be corrected or that your use of the Credit Builder Service will provide specific results

Please note the material on the App or the Credit Builder Service could include technical inaccuracies or typographical errors.

The App, its content and the Credit Builder Service are delivered on an "as-is" and "as-available" basis.

24. Exclusion of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we exclude any liability direct, indirect or consequential loss or damage incurred by any user in connection with our Wollit App or the Credit Builder Service or in connection with the use, inability to use, or results of the use of our App or the Credit Builder Service, including:

loss of business; income or revenue; profits or contracts; anticipated savings; data; or goodwill;
wasted management or office time; and
any other loss or damage of any kind, however arising and whether caused by tort (including negligence), breach of contract or otherwise, even if foreseeable.

Nothing in these terms limits any liability which cannot legally be limited, including but not limited to liability for:

death or personal injury caused by negligence;
fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; or
any other liability which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.

We're not liable for any failure, suspension and or termination of access to the App or Credit Builder Service in connection with or arising out of an event which is outside our reasonable control.

25. Which law applies to these terms?

These terms are governed by the law and regulations of England and Wales.