Key Takeaways
- Credit One Bank found that some daters want platforms to publish users’ credit scores, indicating a desire for increased financial transparency on the apps.
- Establishing a clear path toward financial stability can make more of an impact on a relationship than a poor credit score, said Credit One Bank survey respondents.
- The demand for financial transparency suggests that modern daters want to bring once-taboo topics, like politics, religion, and money, out into the open.
These days, dating apps let users share everything from their political opinions to their drinking habits on their dating profiles. These are, after all, common dealbreakers that can change the course of relationships.
And with financial habits becoming dinnertime conversations, daters also want to know what potential matches think about money — and how they handle their own finances.
To this end, Credit One Bank found that 20% of Gen Z and millennial daters want dating apps to help people indicate their financial health — to build financial transparency into their UI. These daters specifically hold up credit scores as a useful metric of someone’s financial stability.
Healthy $ Habits Are Hot — And So Are Financial Goals
The higher the credit score, the more attractive someone is, according to more than half of Credit One Bank’s survey respondents. This confirms what we already knew: that healthy money habits can translate to attractiveness.
It also suggests that making this information easy to access on a dating profile can lead to more profile engagement. People want to know their potential partner’s financial habits, even if they aren’t always open to sharing their own.
After all, you can learn a lot from a credit score — not only if someone is actively building credit by establishing healthy spending and saving habits, but also if they are capable of setting long-term financial goals.
In fact, Credit One Bank’s survey assures daters that a low credit score is not automatically a red flag; Only 5% of men and 10% of women told Credit One Bank that a shaky financial background is a dealbreaker.
The hope is that financial transparency can lead to productive conversations about financial literacy and future goals.
Of course, it’s no surprise that the more financially secure among us are more interested in learning other people’s credit scores on dating apps, according to Credit One Bank. After all, daters with a higher income may be especially interested to know just how different their financial situation and habits are from their potential partner’s.
It’s Not Only About Money, But About Transparency
This newfound emphasis on financial transparency hasn’t come from out of nowhere.
A DatingNews and Kinsey Institute study found that 38% of surveyed Gen Z singles make dating decisions, such as whether to cohabitate, based on the economy. And it’s no secret that today’s daters value honesty when dating, even when it comes to money habits.
Of course, the unpredictable nature of today’s economy has something to do with daters’ desire for financial transparency, too. Money is on our minds — especially if it isn’t in our pockets.
With only 20% of respondents open to sharing their credit scores on dating apps, it’s clear that there’s a ways to go before daters start shouting their personal financial info from the rooftops.
A majority of Credit One Bank respondents said that the best time to get deep about financial matters is after a couple discusses “serious future plans” — so, not within the first few pickup lines on a dating app.
It’s worth noting that financial transparency is by no means a universal preference. Fourteen percent of respondents think couples should only divulge their financial information if they decide to combine their finances, and 7% even said that finances should always stay private.
But 20% is still significant and indicates a growing trend toward transparency about topics that were once considered taboo, including politics, religion, and now finances.
A separate Credit Karma survey from 2024 found that of the 32% of respondents who would swipe right on a lower credit score, 53% would do so because they appreciate the user’s transparency.
This sends a clear message to dating platforms that transparency is an increasingly important priority to modern daters. Instead of filling profiles with vague information about their likes and dislikes, daters want to know the real deal: What someone believes in, if their values are aligned, and yes, if they have stable finances.
