Credit Insights by SoFi Review – Free Financial App With Credit Insights

Credit Insights by SoFi is the latest innovation from SoFi, a diversified financial services provider that offers student loan refinancing through SoFi Loans, a low-cost brokerage and investing platform (SoFi Invest), and a banking platform (SoFi Checking and Savings), among others.

Credit Insights is a full-bore financial app and budgeting tool that helps you track your spending, monitor your credit, set financial goals, and see all your financial accounts in a single dashboard. It’s totally free to use and doesn’t obligate you to apply for any other SoFi product.

Think SoFi Credit Insights might be just what you need to stay on top of your financial life? Read on to learn more about its key features, strengths, and drawbacks.

Key Features of SoFi Credit Insights

SoFi Credit Insights takes a holistic approach to helping you manage your finances and credit score.

These are its most important components. Just create a free SoFi account to access Credit Insights in the SoFi mobile app or desktop site.

Account Opening Bonus

For a limited time, new Credit Insights users can earn up to 1,000 rewards points after signing up and registering for the product. That’s worth $10 toward:

• Converting points into fractional crypto shares with SoFi Active Invest
• Converting points into dollars deposited in a SoFi Bank account, where eligible balances earn 1.25% APY
• Redeem rewards points into cryptocurrencies

See the SoFi Rewards page for a complete list of redemption options.

Central Dashboard for Linked Accounts and Assets

At Credit Insights’s core is a mobile-friendly dashboard that shows all your linked financial accounts and assets at a glance.

Credit Insights links up with most of your SoFi accounts automatically, if you have any. The sole exception at the moment is SoFi’s home loan product. If you have a mortgage or home equity loan with SoFi, you’ll need to link it manually to see the current balance. You can see your home’s appraised value, however.

Not that setting up manual links to SoFi Credit Insights is difficult. SoFi uses Plaid to securely connect with your financial accounts and periodically pull in up-to-date balance information. The types of financial products and accounts you can link include but may not be limited to:

• Bank accounts, including savings accounts and checking accounts
• Credit cards, although rewards points or cash-back balances may not be visible in the dashboard
• Personal loans and other unsecured credit products
• Secured loans such as mortgages and auto loans
• Investment accounts
• Your primary residence and any investment properties you own
• Other potentially valuable assets, such as your car

Access to Your Credit Score and Ongoing Monitoring

As a SoFi member, you get complimentary access to your VantageScore 3.0, an alternative credit score developed by the three major credit reporting bureaus.

Your score updates weekly with no action required on your end, but you can pull it even more frequently if you wish. Doing so doesn’t affect your credit score, and your most recent number is always visible in your SoFi Credit Insights account dashboard.

Financial Tracking

Once you’ve linked your financial accounts to SoFi Credit Insights, you can track your spending patterns and balance histories over time. This makes it easy to see how and where you’re spending money, whether you’re keeping pace with your budget, and how it’s all affecting your net worth.

Targeted Financial Insights and Tips

As a SoFi Credit Insights user, you’ll receive targeted financial insights and suggestions based on your financial behaviors, credit score, net worth, and other factors. This information may include offers to sign up or apply for certain SoFi products and services, but you’re under no obligation to do so.

Complimentary Financial Planner Consultation

Once you create your SoFi Credit Insights account, you’re entitled to one complimentary 30-minute consultation with one of SoFi’s in-house financial planning professionals.

This consultation is your chance to discuss big-picture financial goals with someone whose job it is to think about them. You can discuss topics like your general financial health, how to manage your debts, whether and when to buy a home or have children, and your longer-term plans for retirement or financial independence.

Advantages of Credit Insights by SoFi

SoFi Credit Insights has a lot going for it. It’s totally free, doesn’t affect your credit score, offers a comprehensive view of your financial situation, and comes with a free financial planner consultation — just to name a few of its benefits.

• Free to Use. SoFi Credit Insights is totally free for users. You don’t have to pay a subscription fee, monthly maintenance fee, or any other one-off or recurring levy to use this service.
• No Effect on Your Credit Score. Checking your credit score with SoFi Credit Insights doesn’t affect your credit. You can check your score as often as you’d like without temporarily depressing it, as generally happens when you apply for a new loan or line of credit.
• See Your Regularly Updated Credit Score at a Glance. If you’re a SoFi Credit Insights user, you don’t need to pay for a credit monitoring service to stay on top of your credit score. You have access to a free VantageScore 3.0 as often as you’d like, right alongside all the financial accounts you’ve linked to SoFi Credit Insights.
• See All Your Accounts in a Single View. SoFi Credit Insights makes it easy to see all your assets, liabilities, and financial accounts at a glance. It’s a one-dashboard view of your entire financial life, or at least as much of your financial life as you’d like to share with SoFi.
• Get Targeted Insights About Your Financial Behaviors and Goals. SoFi Credit Insights delivers targeted insights and suggestions about your financial behaviors, including suggestions for SoFi products that might align with your needs or goals. Think of it as a digital financial coach, without the obligation to pay for any services you don’t want.
• Comes With a Complimentary Financial Planner Consultation. As a SoFi Credit Insights customer, you’re entitled to a complimentary 30-minute consultation with one of SoFi’s financial planners. This is an open-ended opportunity where you can ask burning financial questions or drill down on specific goals, like paying down your student debt or setting a long-range retirement plan in motion.

Disadvantages of Credit Insights by SoFi

Credit Insights isn’t perfect. Potential drawbacks include no access to your FICO score and no direct link (yet) with SoFi’s home loan product.

• Doesn’t Provide Your FICO Score. SoFi Credit Insights uses VantageScore 3.0, an alternative credit score developed by the three major credit reporting agencies. While VantageScore has the same numerical scale and considers similar factors as the more popular FICO score, it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. Perhaps more importantly, VantageScore isn’t as widely used by lenders as FICO, so it may not have the predictive power you need when determining if the time is right to apply for new credit.
• Not Yet Linked With SoFi Home Loans. If you have a home loan with SoFi, SoFi Credit Insights doesn’t yet link to the account directly. This means you can’t see your current mortgage balance in the app. However, you can see your home’s appraised value and other important details about the property.

How Credit Insights by SoFi Stacks Up

Credit Insights isn’t alone in the money management and credit monitoring game. It has a number of competitors, including Credit Sesame. Here’s how the two stack up.

Final Word

If you’re liable to feel like your financial life is out of control, Credit Insights by SoFi has your back. It’s a totally free, no-obligation service from a diversified financial services provider that offers a slew of loans, financial accounts, and value-added services for folks at every stage of life. And with a complimentary financial planning consultation in the offing, SoFi Credit Insights could just help you chart a sustainable course to a more prosperous future.

Disclosure: SoFi’s Credit Insights tool offers users the ability to connect both in-house accounts and external accounts using Plaid, Inc’s service. When you use the service to connect an account, you authorize SoFi to obtain account information from any external accounts as set forth in SoFi’s Terms of Use. SoFi assumes no responsibility for the timeliness, accuracy, deletion, non-delivery, or failure to store any user data, loss of user data, communications, or personalization settings. You shall confirm the accuracy of Plaid data through sources independent of SoFi. The credit score provided to you is a VantageScore® based on TransUnion® (the “Processing Agent”) data.

Advisory services are offered through SoFi Wealth, LLC an SEC-Registered Investment Adviser. Information about SoFi Wealth’s advisory operations, services, and fees is set forth in SoFi Wealth’s current Form ADV Part 2 (Brochure), a copy of which is available upon request and at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov.