Hi all...
I have read over these posts tonight and am still concerned about allowing any form of access to my bank account for nothing other than security concerns. I guess I don’t have the detail to make a full assessment of the portal at this stage.
Has anyone asked Creditfix how they intend to carry out the review is it based on an annual return or six monthly. This is more to do with the CD customers that are normally assessed 6 monthly? Will the new company keep to a 6 month review to track personal circumstances,.
I have 14 months still to go on my TD and would like to think the new company will review every six months? Rather than 12 months.
Please continue to post any updates received from discussions with Creditfix.
Jimuc.

Just to clarify this for everyone, I can confirm that Creditfix Ltd acquired The Carrington Dean Group Ltd (‘Carrington Dean’) on 12 September 2017. Carrington Dean is now the trading name of Creditfix Ltd in Scotland and the administration of your Trust Deed will continue as normal under the company name of Carrington Dean Ltd, with me as your Trustee.

When we conduct an annual review, we request that our customers use a secure application that allows them to securely access their online banking details. This application does not allow Carrington Dean/Creditfix or any of our employees access to the customer’s bank account information, in any way whatsoever. It uses third party software that complies fully with all applicable data protection and security regulations and is supported by all major banks. Customers are sent a secure link that allows them to enter their internet banking details and the application securely downloads their banking records for a period of up to 12 months. This is sent to a secure area of Carrington Dean/Creditfix’s own system to enable us to conduct an income and expenditure review. The technology used is known as “Screen Scraping” and interestingly is something that the Money Advice Service has also enquired about. For clarification – Carrington Dean/Creditfix has absolutely no visibility of any customer usernames or passwords and the information is not stored on our system after completion.

We introduced the process to make it easier, quicker and more secure for our customers to provide information for their annual review. Using this process our customers can complete the review in a few minutes, it removes the need for them to fill in forms and gather together bank statements to send by post or convert to PDF and email to us. It is certainly more secure and confidential than using the post or email. We expect many of our competitors will start to use a similar type of technology in due course. As already mentioned in this thread, many lenders are using this to help make lending decisions, rather than relying solely on credit searches that do not provide any information relating to affordability. We understand some initial misgivings are likely with any new technology but over 1,500 of our customers have completed this process so far, with no problems.

Shortly before a customer’s review is due we will contact them by telephone to discuss the process. Following this call, the customer will receive an email and SMS containing a secure link which will start the process.

This short video demonstrates the steps which will provide Carrington Dean/Creditfix with a copy of a customer’s bank statements to complete their review. * LINK REMOVED * (link might be removed, you can view on the Creditfix website).

If any customers reading this have any specific questions about this process please email annual.reviews@carringtondean.com or call our review team on 0141 218 4334. Otherwise, you can await our team contacting you to discuss your case. It is our intention to contact all customers to complete a review of their income and expenditure, however, if it is evident that a review was completed very recently with the previous Trustee then it is likely that we will rely on that information. We complete reviews on an annual basis based on the trust deed anniversary, however, for ‘new’ customers it is beneficial to do this as early as possible. Obviously, out with an annual review if a customer’s circumstances change then they should contact us to advise and discuss the impact this has on their disposable income.

The contact details for Carrington Dean’s customer service team are 0141 221 2323 or by email at customerservice@carringtondean.com. These can be used by any customer for any query relating to their trust deed.

Thanks
Thomas

Thanks for posting that Thomas, hopefully some reassurance for Carrington Dean customers now moving over to Creditfix.

I think it's a good point regarding security; the risks of putting a paper statement into the postal system (or via potentially insecure email services) aren't insignificant in comparison to a portal that has been designed with security in mind (in order to achieve regulatory approval).

Hi
Thanks that's really helpful and great to know how secure it it.

Thanks

Out of curiosity, although I suspect no-one has an answer for this as yet, what if after knowingly giving out your details something went amiss with your bank account, surely as the customer your bank would not be supportive as you knowingly revealed your details to a third party - nothing is ever 100% secure unfortunately

Hi silly.

I believe that the banks have cooperated with firms that have been building regulated and secure systems to deliver this service.

Not quite a direct answer to your question, I know.

Hi TDA

Thank you for your response. It certainly sounds an innovative idea however the European Banking Federation have asked the EU Commission to ban such Screen Scraping due to the risk of cybersecurity and clients private data. Whether such a ban, if implemented, will filter through to the UK will depends on politics I guess

Yes - I have also heard from people who think this innovation might be short-lived for the same reason that you've given silly.

Hi I have just had this request for review of my online banking
Does it only look back 3 months or does it search everything?
Do you see the information it is submitting before it happens?

Thanks

Hopefully answered (at least in part) on your new thread Fezzaj.

It’s probably best to keep it in one place otherwise things can quickly become confusing.