Centre for Responsible Credit’s new report, ‘Good Score, Empty Cupboard: The Credit Score trap forcing households to cut spending on the essentials’, provides insights into the “widespread harm driven by marketing of credit scores to financially stretched borrowers.” It raises serious concerns over the credit broking practices of score providers, whose apps and dashboards are said to “push hard-up borrowers to take on more debt than they can afford.”
The report has been covered on BBC News, and featured on BBC Panorama (19/01/2026 BBC One at 8pm – available on iplayer). It is based on a representative survey of 3,400 low-to-middle income households, as well as 30 qualitative interviews.
Key findings
- Credit score concerns deter hard-up borrowers from seeking help: industry-promoted fixation on credit scores deters 3/4 of borrowers from seeking support, making debt problems harder to resolve.
- Credit score messaging pushes people into hardship: a third (32%) of low-to-middle income borrowers, 6.4 million people, are cutting their spending on essentials like food and heating specifically to preserve their credit score.
- Credit score providers facilitate often unaffordable debt: 43% of borrowers act on credit score providers’ offers to take out further credit products; yet in just a few months, one in five experience financial distress from the new payments.
Following the FCA’s establishment of a new Credit Information Governance Body, Centre for Responsible Credit believes there is now a significant opportunity for cross-sector coordination to mitigate these harms, deliver higher standards, and protect struggling borrowers. Its report calls for the Government and regulators to work with industry and consumer groups to:
- Ensure tough new credit score marketing controls, to stop the promotion of credit to people showing signs of financial difficulty, and link borrowers to independent debt help.
- Introduce strict limits both on the frequency of credit score reminders, and on providers’ credit broking dashboards, to prevent foreseeable harm.
- Reshape the credit reporting system, allowing for borrower contexts to be shared and making lender behaviours more visible on credit files.
Read the full report here and blog summary here.