In some countries credit score registries are restricted by law to only holding information on delinquent debt, so an average person has no entries in the credit score registries. This is the case here in Finland currently, though a national positive credit register is being planned for 2024 (https://www.vero.fi/en/positivecreditregister/).
I count 5 countries of the 27 eu countries in that list, and it seems half of them have a gov based system. So the situation seems different from the US.
I always get orwellian vibes from the US system. Some random big brotherish corporation looks at you in any way it can, then runs some completely untransparant system to produce an unreliable number, with no appeal. That number determines your chances in life.
Then again, my governement keeps track of how well I do on repaying my loans and tells that to lending orgs. I assume someone with a US style 'gubberment' thought process might recoil in horror even if I rather like it.
The craziest thing about the US system is that you have to use credit (and pay it back punctually) as opposed to debit just in order to convince future creditors that you're a good customer. Migrants to the US can run into a Kafkaesque situation where they need a credit score to get a credit card, but they need a credit card to accumulate a credit score first...
It's especially crazy because in most of Europe I am pretty sure a mere possession of a credit card is correlated with being more likely to get into financial trouble.
I never had a credit card. Among my friends who do well financially most don't have a credit card or just got it because their bank offered a crippled debit card that wasn't accepted at hotels and car rental. They never use the credit line. On the other have out of the financially irresponsible people I know most have multiple credit cards and use them as a credit line in regular basis.
Most people around here only have a credit card to deal with USA focused internet shops. I never used the credit possibilities of mine, felt worried when using it, and cancelled it when iDeal etc became more common on the net.
Can confirm your experience. Although in my circles credit cards are more common due to kickbacks - big discounts at places you'd normally go to anyway, or straight up financial incentives. Everyone prefers debit however, and credit cards are definitely not the norm.
If you already have an Amex card from your country of origin, Amex will get you one based on the score of your country of origin, or at least that is what I had heard
They'll also let you get a secured loan for something you were planning to pay for in cash (e.g. a car), but instead you dump that cash into an account which automatically pays down the loan balance every month. I did it. The interest rate for the loan was a fraction of a percent higher than the interest on the account.
It's monumentally stupid, though, and says nothing about my ability to pay off future debt.
It says you're able to manage your cash flow well enough that you were never tempted to prioritize something else over the repayment, for months, probably years at a time.
IMO that says a lot about your willingness to pay off future debt.
Does this really happen? I migrated to the US and had no problem getting a CC. The limit was low, just a few Ks at first, but it gave me a chance to start building credit record.
It certainly does, depending of course on where you migrated from. Someone from a first world country and who has established assets is going to be in an easier position than someone who doesn't. And unfortunately, in this country credit isn't really an option, everything from potential landlords to employers can use it against you.
Say what you want about FICO scores, they are a lot of things, but they are not "completely untransparant," FICO tells you exactly what makes up the score:
You conclude that most EU countries have a credit score by linking to a Wikipedia article showing that almost none European country has a credit score?
It's not like the US system. It's a negative credit score meaning that you start as a good lender and then you can only fuck it up by not paying your bills.
In the US we have positive credit score meaning you have to show you are a good lender to get a better score.
> You conclude that most EU countries have a credit score by linking to a Wikipedia article showing that almost none European country has a credit score?
The Wikipedia article does not show that almost no European country has a credit score or credit reporting system. It simply provides examples from various countries and is obviously not exhaustive, like most lists in Wikipedia.
If you want to just see how many EU countries have any credit registries, these World Bank links have good data:
They show most EU countries have such registries. I did go through a dozen countries manually before finding the above handy links, though...
Of course one could argue whether or not those systems which only allow negative entries (and thus most people will have no data there) for a credit check should be considered credit score systems.
Credit registry =/= credit score system. You are moving the goal post here. Your previous assertion is just false. the US system is brutal, unfair and shouldn't be reproduced anywhere else in the world at first place.
In some countries credit score registries are restricted by law to only holding information on delinquent debt, so an average person has no entries in the credit score registries. This is the case here in Finland currently, though a national positive credit register is being planned for 2024 (https://www.vero.fi/en/positivecreditregister/).