CreditTrust provides Swiss residents with a digital public debt record certificate; which is secured on the blockchain, making it immutable and instantly verifiable.
If you are looking for an apartment and need a public debt record (known as a “Betreibungsauskunft” in Switzerland), you will need patience. You can order it online quite quickly, but then it takes a while to arrive by mail.
Typically, public debt records are required by companies to determine the credit-worthiness of their business partners, or by private individuals, who often request these certificates from their lessors during the application process.
There are a number of providers that allow you to comfortably order a public debt record online. However, none of them can offer it to you digitally as the municipality of residence sends it on paper by mail.
Can this be done differently?
This is a question that Certifaction, CRIF and Intrum have answered through their digital solution – CreditTrust. CreditTrust is a digital alternative to the traditional public debt record. This blockchain secured certificate was launched a couple of days ago.
The credit data providers CRIF and Intrum provide the data, while Certifaction provides the blockchain technology. Within three minutes, you can order a tamper-proof CreditTrust certificate online. This certificate states the creditworthiness of the owner. The authenticity of the certificate can be checked within seconds using the online verification tool.
Is an alternative public debt record necessary?
CreditTrust is convinced of this and argues that apart from the easy, efficient, and digital process, the immutability of the digital document is what makes it valuable. A Comparis study (2017) found that Swiss applicants like to manipulate and change information in order to get their dream apartment. The study found that one in seven applicants does so. The majority of participants successfully passed the application with their manipulated information and would reportedly try again in the future.
It is impossible to manipulate a CreditTrust certificate due to it being secured on the Ethereum blockchain. Any changes would result in a negative outcome during the verification process. Additionally, using traditional public debt records, one can move to a new municipality that would provide them with a clean slate. This is because the municipalities do not share information and only record your creditworthiness during the time you live there – meaning historical data is forgotten. This provides a great opportunity to the so-called “rental nomads” who move to a new municipality to have a clean record, to the disadvantage of the landlords. With CRIF and Intrum’s data, it is possible to look up historical data, regardless of the person moving.
What do landlords and real estate platforms say?
It is easy to see why landlords and real estate administrators could find the CreditTrust certificate to be useful as proof of an applicants’ creditworthiness. Especially, since the underlying data from the two data providers is much broader than that of the local municipalities.
Real estate portal Newhome will be CreditTrust’s first partner. Jean-Pierre Valenghi, CEO of Newhome, says:
“As a Swiss real estate portal, we are constantly looking for digitally automated solutions that offer added value for advertisers and searchers. With CreditTrust, we have found such a solution. It will optimize data security and minimize the risk of forgery in the future through blockchain, while at the same time significantly increasing our user-friendliness and speed [during the application process]”.
Niche or widely used blockchain application in everyday life?
The success of this alternative to the traditional public debt record will be decided by how quickly and to what extent the two groups – private individuals looking for accommodation, and landlords seeking tenants – can become comfortable with the idea of the CreditTrust certificate.
After all, the two market leaders CRIF and Intrum have the means to communicate and roll out the new service widely. This increases the chance of turning the idea into an accepted blockchain application that is used in everyday life.
Read the MoneyToday article (in German) here.