Monitoring your credit score is increasingly important these days. With fraud and scams ever on the rise, keeping an eye on your credit score will alert you to any potential issues, such as identity theft or credit card fraud. Your credit score is also important because most lenders will approve or deny your credit applications based on it.
Borrowell offers free credit score and credit report updates and monitoring. And this is great – having free access to this information is hugely beneficial. Of course, there's a catch. You see, Borrowell will use your information to market financial products and services to you. Essentially, you're sacrificing a bit of your privacy and information for a "free" service. Whether you're willing to do that or not is up to you, of course.
Borrowell credit monitoring features
Take a look at what Borrowell has to offer with its credit monitoring service.
Why You Want It
Free credit score and report + Personalized tips, tools, and offers.
Special Features
- Personalized recommendations
- Personalized credit education
- Bank-level security for your personal information
- Valuable referral program
Eligibility
- Canadian citizen
- Age of majority
Provinces
ALL
Features
Monthly Fee
$0
Which Credit Bureau?
Equifax
Credit Score Access?
Credit Report Access?
Update Frequency
Weekly
Mobile App
Borrowell credit monitoring product rating: 2.9 stars
Borrowell Credit Monitoring offers a valuable service for free. While it does use your information for marketing purposes, these recommendations are highly personalized, which you may find useful. They also offer a personalized credit education, which can help you better understand your credit, and how to repair your credit score if you're in dire straits. Borrowell offers weekly credit score updates, and has a handy mobile app.
Rating methodology
To calculate our Genius Ratings, we compare the features of the account or product in question with other similar products in Canada. We give each feature a score out of 5 based on that comparison. Once we’ve rated all the features, we run them through our proprietary algorithm to produce a final rating out of 5.
Learn more about our rating methodology.
The pros of this Borrowell credit monitoring
Free credit reports and regular updates from Borrowell can be quite valuable.
Pros
Bank level security
To get your free reports, you’ll have to provide Borrowell with a fair amount of private information. This can include your date of birth, annual income, and more. But Borrowell’s security is tight – your data is protected by 256-bit encryption, which is what most top-level banks use. So you can rest assured that all information within your account will be well protected.
Personalized recommendations
Yes, it can be annoying – and perhaps even unnerving – to receive product and service recommendations from Borrowell, but there is significant consideration put into them. By comparing products from their 75+ partners with your credit profile and other personal information you’ve entered into your profile, the recommendations you receive are highly tailored. It’s quite likely that you’ll find at least one type of personal loan, insurance policy, credit card, etc., that you’ll actually use and benefit from.
Completely free
This is one of the very few credit monitoring services that won’t cost you a nickel. You have access to your credit score, credit report, and ongoing credit activity, plus weekly monitoring reports. Other, similar services usually send these reports on a monthly basis, so if you’re serious about improving your credit or are especially worried about fraud, this increased frequency is a relief. Receiving the highly-personalized recommendations mentioned above seems like a small "price" to pay for this.
The cons of this Borrowell credit monitoring
Unfortunately, this service isn’t perfect. Here are a few downsides to take note of.
Cons
Limited customer service
While Borrowell does have a help center on its site, it’s basically just an FAQ section. If you can’t find the answer you’re looking for, you’ll have to fill out a request form – there doesn’t seem to be any other contact information available. An instant chat feature would go a long way here.
No guaranteed approvals
Those tailored recommendations for financial products and services might offer fantastic opportunities, but only if you’re actually approved for them. Don’t expect to be instantly accepted for a product just because Borrowell thinks you’d benefit from it.
Borrowell credit monitoring alternatives
If you’re curious, here are a few alternatives to Borrowell’s credit monitoring services.
 |  |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Account | Borrowell Credit Monitoring | Equifax Complete Premier | KOHO Credit Building | Credit Karma Credit Monitoring |
| Genius Rating | ||||
| Why You Want It | Free credit score and report + Personalized tips, tools, and offers. | Up to $1 million in ID theft insurance + Daily credit score updates. | Build your credit for only $10/month + Keep tabs on your progress. | Completely free to use + Monitors score from Transunion. |
| Monthly Fee | $0 | $24.95 | $10 | $0 |
| Which Credit Bureau? | Equifax | Equifax | Equifax | See Issuer for Details |
| Credit Score Access? | | | | |
| Credit Report Access? | | | | |
| Update Frequency | Weekly | Daily | Monthly | Weekly |
Show More | ||||
| Apply Now See more Borrowell products Compare | Apply Now See more Equifax products Compare | Apply Now See more KOHO products Compare | Learn More See more Credit Karma products Compare |
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FAQ
Will Borrowell’s credit checks hurt my credit score?
No, your credit score won’t be affected by this. Their credit checks are completed using a soft credit inquiry, and this type does not impact your score in any way.
Where does the Borrowell credit report come from? Which credit bureau does it use?
Borrowell uses Equifax when doing their credit checks and monitoring. Equifax itself also offers credit monitoring, but for a $4.95 monthly fee.
Why is my Borrowell credit score different from the score I got through Equifax?
Differences in scores can happen, and there are explanations for this. If you received your Equifax score in the mail, your score could have changed while it was en route. Otherwise, if you received the score over the phone or on the same day that you received one from Borrowell, the Borrowell score simply needs time to update and match what Equifax reported.
Editorial Disclaimer: The content here reflects the author's opinion alone, and is not endorsed or sponsored by a bank, credit card issuer, rewards program or other entity. For complete and updated product information please visit the product issuer's website.
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