Capital One continues to extend the reach of a new mobile-first credit monitoring service, CreditWise, by bringing it to Android users as the financial organization prioritizes anytime, anyplace interactive services.

CreditWise is an interactive tool for monitoring and managing a user’s credit score. Launched on iOS last month, the service has now landed on Android, bringing the service any smartphone-equipped consumer, even those who are not Capital One customers.

“At Capital One, we want to go where our consumers are and provide them with choice,” said Pranav Khanna, senior director of product management and analytics at Capital One. “Since Android users represent more than 50 percent of smartphone usage, launching CreditWise on Android is a natural extension of that approach.

“Likewise, the goal of CreditWise is to provide a free credit monitoring app to as many people as possible – whether they have a Capital One product or not,” he said. “By offering CreditWise on both Android and iOS, coupled with the powerful CreditWise Web platform, we are on our way to achieve that vision.”

Mobile convenience
CreditWise is a free mobile app and Web site that enables users to view a weekly credit score provided by TransUnion; use the Credit Simulator to see how everyday decisions affect their credit score; learn about the key factors that make up a credit score and how a user is doing on each of them, and alerts informing users about changes to their credit report.

Users can also view their accounts and balances in one place and read simple tips for how to take control of their credit.

Much-needed support
Capital One’s research supports the need for a mobile, interactive credit monitoring service, with only 31 percent of consumers having their credit score memorized; 49 percent of Americans thinking it is easier to decide who to vote for in a presidential election than to monitor their credit score; 37 percent not having checking their credit score in more than a year, and 13 percent having never checked their credit score.

The launch of CreditWise last month on iOS was the first step in overhauling the financial organization’s previous credit tracking service in response to the fact that most of the use for the previous service came from smartphone users (see story).

“We are always looking for ways to create seamless digital experiences for our users and listen to their feedback,” Mr. Khanna said.

“For example, we moved to weekly score updates, switched to TransUnion VantageScore 3.0 and made a number of experiential enhancements to CreditWise based on the beta we did late last year,” he said.

“While we’re seeing a strong rating in the app store and positive customer feedback, our developers will continue to enhance CreditWise to make it a powerful, user-friendly offering.”