Ep. 117 - Better Borrowing Is Built, Not Born: Rewriting the Rules of Consumer Credit, with Loqbox

Tom Eyre (0:00)

Nobody has a credit score, so none of you listening have a credit score. There is no one single universal credit score. We have a credit system that benefits those who are already within it and prejudices those who are outside of it. The fact that that is commonly accepted to be the best way for somebody to build a credit history from scratch to me is utterly outrageous. You can shoot yourself in the foot, but you can't shoot yourself in the chest. You know, it's still bad. We'd still rather you weren't shooting yourself at all and you were doing something a little bit more proactive and positive. There are always unintended consequences when you squeeze the bubble that always pops out somewhere else, right? We have seen regulatory restrictions on credit that inadvertently has reduced access to credit for those who are underserved.

In a small number of those cases, that will be absolutely in their best interest. But we have also coincidentally at the same time seen a boom in illegal money. It is always more complicated than the headline.

Grant Evans (0:56)

Welcome back to The Payments Shed Podcast. Today, we are joined by Tom Eyre, CEO and co-founder of Loqbox. Tom, thank you so much for joining us. Tell us a little bit more about yourself and what you do.

Tom Eyre (1:05)

Thank you very much for having me. I'm Tom, I'm the CEO and co-founder of Loqbox. We are, I think, the UK's largest financial wellbeing business. So we started a really long time ago now. I think the business started in 2009 to help people to build a credit history, to access products and services at the right price, to save money and to learn about the financial system. And we've evolved a little bit since then, but that is essentially what we do today.

Justin Hanna (1:32)

And a lot of people think they probably understand the credit system and how your credit score works. But I think the reality when you scratch below the surface is they really probably don't, right? So maybe if we start there, I think that the system is starting to change. We've obviously seen businesses like yourself that are helping people to improve their credit scores. My brother actually uses Loqbox. He's had some bad credit issues with bills and things in the past, shall we say.

But where did the idea come from originally? What was it that brought you into this arena?

Tom Eyre (2:04)

Yeah, it was my sister, actually. So she left law school. She got a job in the city.

She was kitting out her first post-student digs, and she tried to get interest-free finance on a sofa for about four quid a week from a well-known sofa retailer. She was rejected, and this is back in 2009 And she went to our parents and said, why have I been rejected? And they kind of went, I don't know who goes to beat your brother. He does something in money.

And she came to me and I said, don't worry about it, Lauren. You're just thin file, no fogey, got no credit history. You'll sort yourself out in time. So I really chinned her off in that conversation. I gave her absolutely no support whatsoever. And that conversation haunted me. And I decided to create a business that at the time was called Credit Improver, that later became Loqbox. And that was the first credit building business in the UK. And I think actually in that story, that origin story is still a lot of what holds true today. And in some respects, disappointingly holds true today. We have a system, we have a credit system that benefits those who are already within it and prejudices those who are outside of it. And increasingly over the years, what does that mean? It means more people are underserved by the financial system in one way or another. So providing an opportunity to evidence your skills, competencies, behaviours, capabilities just makes loads of sense and makes sense for individuals and for families and for communities and for society as a whole. I think financial inclusion is, in my opinion, a good proxy for social mobility. And when we get that right, it's good for everybody. Lauren then went to our parents and I've said she left law school, right? So she's educated, but she didn't have a clue how the system worked. And that's entirely reasonable because we don't teach financial education really anywhere. And we have a number of studies that show that even now, where financial education is on the national curriculum, people still leave school saying they didn't get any financial education. So wrong education, wrong time, who knows, it's probably a bit of both. But the point is that we still in 2026, spit people out of schools, colleges and universities into one of the most complex financial service sectors on the planet. And we hope that they will have acquired the skills to succeed by osmosis.