The Schufa was founded in Berlin in 1927. It grew into a system for judging how people pay. Today it holds data on 67.9 million people. For 17 March 2026 it announced a new score on a scale from 100 to 999 points, based on twelve criteria. Payment problems are among them, and so is the age of a person’s oldest credit card. The consumer advice center of North Rhine-Westphalia welcomed the greater transparency but criticized parts of the new score. Younger consumers “haben gar nicht die Chance auf einen guten Wert,” said its legal expert Christine Steffen. They have no chance at all of a good score. They have not yet been able to prove themselves in economic life.