Ten years ago no one had heard of Netflix, Uber, Tinder or Instagram because... they didn't exist.

But now that smart phones and fast broadband are part of our daily lives, how we listen to music, watch TV, read news and chat each other up have all changed as these services have taken over our lives.

And now it's the turn of banking to get the same treatment.

For decades, people's banking transaction details were difficult to access, but now Open Banking requires the big banks to share this information with third parties, if their customers ask them to.

This is fundamentally changing the relationship people have with their bank by putting them in control of who can see their banking activity.

Er...so what?

Creditladder is part of this revolution and we were the first service of its kind to adopt this technology, which enables us to link into a tenant's bank account (with their permission) and read their rent payments.

This means that we understand how much rent a person has paid and the date on which they paid it. This information can be shared with Experian so that a person's on-time rent payments can be added to their Experian credit history.

Lots of different financial apps are now following in our footsteps. So expect in the coming months to have a lot of requests from them as they too adopt Open Banking.

How does it help me?

An improved credit history can lead to better rates on financial products such as mortgages, loans and even mobile phone contracts

Overall, by helping to improve millions of tenants’ credit histories for free via Open Banking, we can help bring about both a revolution in the way lenders calculate creditworthiness, and give tenants better access to affordable financial products.

What's the downside?

Just a little more admin, really. Once you've set yourself up and given your bank permission to enable services like us to read your bank account, it will require you to refresh your connection with them every three months so that you can keep tabs on which services you've given permissions to. But that's about it. But don't worry - we will let you know when you need to do it.

Find out more about Open Banking

CreditLadder can help you improve your credit score

If you want to improve your credit position by reporting your rent payments, CreditLadder is the only way to improve your credit score and position across all four of the main Credit Reference Agencies in the UK, namely Experian, Equifax, TransUnion and Crediva. Building up a high credit score has a lot of benefits, including helping you access finance at better rates - this can also help save you money.

CreditLadder also runs a free mortgage application service in partnership with Tembo which will tell you how much you could borrow.

Remember the information provided in this article is for information purposes only and should not be considered as advice.