Credit Score Monitoring

Experts recommend reviewing your credit report regularly to verify that the information is correct and identify any signs of misuse. First Fed has partnered with SavvyMoney to provide free access to your credit score and report. You can sign up through your online banking account.

Monitor Your Credit with SavvyMoney 

SavvyMoney offers an array of credit tracking features. Refresh your report when you visit online banking to keep track of the latest changes to your credit score. 

  • Alerts: See the recent changes that have affected your credit score. 

  • Credit score simulator: Test the impact of different financial decisions and actions on your credit score. For example:
             ○  Taking out a new loan 
             ○  Paying off credit cards 
             ○  Missing a payment 

  • Full credit report: Download to see a complete picture of your loans and/or credit card balances.  

  • Online access: SavvyMoney is accessible through your online banking portal or mobile apps.

 

View your Credit Score and Report

Online Banking 

  1. Login to online banking 
  2. On your homepage, Credit Score is displayed in the upper right. Click “Show full report” to refresh your score and access additional credit monitoring services.  Note: Your last credit score and date updated will display until refreshed. We recommend refreshing weekly.
  3. If your first time accessing your credit report, click "Show My Score." Then follow the prompts to sign up for SavvyMoney. 

Sign up for online banking.

Mobile Banking App 

  1. Login to your mobile banking app
  2. Click “More” from bottom navigation
  3. Under Manage Money, click “Credit Score” 
  4. If your first time viewing your score, select “Getting Started”
  5. Follow the prompts to authorize SavvyMoney to retrieve your credit score and report. It is a soft pull which does not impact your credit score.  

 

Building Credit 

An essential part of getting ahead economically is establishing credit. If you’re buying a house, renting an apartment, leasing a car, or even applying for a job, having a low credit score can make the process more difficult. It’s important to establish good credit to be able to take advantage of better loan rates and increase your purchasing power down the road. 

To start building healthy credit, you will need to take out a loan or line of credit and establish a history of successful payments to that account. Good credit history can take time to establish, whether you are starting from zero or working to improve your credit score. Credit monitoring applications like SavvyMoney can give insight into your credit history and help you understand the impact of financial decisions on your score. Sign up today! 

Credit Builder Loans 

If you haven’t established credit, or have a low score, you will need to establish a history of successful payments to a loan or line of credit to start building your credit score. This can feel like a catch-22 if you are rejected for the very credit cards or loans that would help you build credit history—because you don’t yet have credit history.  

Credit Builder loans are designed to counteract that by allowing someone to take out a small loan that gets invested in a certificate of deposit (CD) and paid back over time to build credit. Instead of having immediate access to the loan amount, the funds are held in the CD until the loan is paid off. After all the payments are made, you will have the amount of the loan plus the interest those funds earned during the repayment period. 

Keeping up with your payments on a credit builder loan is crucial because it shows you can handle a credit account. However, if you have to close out a credit builder loan early, your credit will not be negatively affected, and in most cases, it will have improved if any payments were made. The very design of the program is to create a low-risk way for people to build and improve their credit scores. 

Learn more about credit builder loans.