The National Foundation for Credit Counseling® (NFCC) and Experian® jointly announced today that Experian committed 80,000 free, 12-month memberships to its freecreditscore.com product in support of the NFCC’s Sharpen Your Financial Focus™ program, launched in September of this year. The donation, the largest of its kind ever awarded by Experian, will be used by the NFCC to complement financial education provided by NFCC member agencies to individuals who take part in the program.
Freecreditscore.com’s product has a monthly retail price of $17.99 according to its website. That makes each free annual membership worth $215.88 and $17,270,400 when aggregated to the 80,000 donated memberships. The freecreditscore features include:
• The member’s Experian credit report and credit score
• The Score Planner™ feature, which allows consumers to see how various financial actions can impact credit scores
• Credit monitoring
• Alerts that notify members about new activity on their credit reports
• A mobile app enabling alerts and updates on the go
• Access to fraud resolution agents if suspicious activity is found in the member’s report
According to Experian, “These features all are designed to increase consumers’ understanding of credit and to provide knowledge that can be used to make educated financial decisions.”
The three steps of the NFCC’s Sharpen Your Financial Focus program are as follows:
1. A visit to MyMoneyCheckUp®, available at http://www.SharpenToday.org. MyMoneyCheckUp is an online financial self-assessment tool designed to increase financial awareness and provide consumers with concrete steps to improve their financial well-being.
2. A one-on-one financial review with an NFCC Certified Financial Professional to find solutions to current concerns and develop a realistic plan to meet long-term goals.
3. A financial education workshop designed as a “deep dive” into the major area(s) of interest to the consumer.
“The donation from Experian is a useful resource to put in the hands of people looking to better understand how to get control of their finances,” said Dawn Lockhart, president and CEO of NFCC Member Agency Family Foundations. “It makes the counsel we give come to life in a very real way. Financial behaviors — good and bad — are reflected in a credit score, and seeing that is a powerful motivator.”
