SCHUFA Group revenue increases by 3.8% year-on-year to a new record of €289.8 million in 2024 // SCHUFA Holding AG’s EBIT increases by 1.5% to €79.3 million // Growth drivers are the identification and compliance business areas in particular
Despite the stagnating German economy, SCHUFA remains on a growth path in the 2024 fiscal year. SCHUFA Holding AG’s revenue increased from EUR 276.1 million in 2023 to EUR 285.3 million (+3.3%). Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) rose by 1.5% year-on-year to EUR 79.3 million. The SCHUFA Group, including its subsidiaries Forteil GmbH (bonify) and ClariLab GmbH (KYCnow), grew its revenue more strongly than the Holding AG, namely by 3.8% to EUR 289.8 million1, a new record. The Group’s EBIT also grew by 3.5% year-on-year to EUR 65.6 million.
Increased sales, particularly in the areas of identification and compliance
The SCHUFA Group’s revenue growth varied across SCHUFA’s four business areas – creditworthiness, identification, fraud prevention, and compliance. Revenue in the creditworthiness and fraud prevention areas rose by 2.2% in 2024 compared to 2023, to €245.3 million and €12.5 million, respectively. Revenue increased particularly strongly in the compliance business area, where it saw a 49.6% increase from €4.2 million to €6.2 million. This is largely due to the success of the KYCnow powered by SCHUFA platform, which positions SCHUFA as one of the leading providers of Know Your Customer (KYC) services in Germany to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. The identification business area also saw strong growth, increasing from €17.9 million to €21.9 million (+22.6%).
“Our figures show that the diversification strategy is bearing fruit, because SCHUFA is more than just creditworthiness. The share of our growth areas of identification, fraud prevention, and compliance in group revenue now stands at 14 percent,” says Tanja Birkholz, CEO of SCHUFA. Since 2020, the share of growth areas in group revenue has increased by 3 percentage points from 11% at the time. “In the future, we will place an even stronger focus on the very important areas of Know Your Customer and fraud prevention, in which SCHUFA is working on innovative solutions to support sustainable economic growth in Germany.”
Customer growth and longer customer loyalty with subscription products
Business with corporate customers continued to grow in 2024. SCHUFA generated revenue of €205.3 million (+7.3%) with corporate customers. Growth drivers in the corporate customer business were primarily the identification activity area with address updates and IdentChecks, as well as risk management in the traditional creditworthiness environment. The number of credit inquiries reported remained at the high previous year’s level.
Sales in the private customer segment fell slightly from EUR 85.3 million to EUR 83.2 million (-2.5%). This is due to the declining rental market , which is reflected in lower sales of the SCHUFA credit check. In contrast, sales of subscription products grew from EUR 27.7 million to EUR 29.3 million (+5.8%). This was achieved despite new free offers due to customer growth and longer customer loyalty thanks to higher customer satisfaction. The increased customer satisfaction is due, among other things, to the expanded added value of the subscription products, such as the more comprehensive update service (which informs private individuals in real time about changes to their data status) and the daily calculated score. The subscriptions also include the multiple credit check for the rental market and even greater protection against identity fraud, such as the Identchecker.
Customer orientation and transparency remain in focus
The reason for the difference in EBIT between the Group and the Holding AG is the Group’s investments in the context of SCHUFA’s transformation. In 2024, SCHUFA continued its course of focusing even more closely on the wishes and needs of private individuals and corporate customers. This includes greater transparency regarding the data stored by SCHUFA and how personal scores work and how they can be influenced. To implement this more quickly, SCHUFA acquired the FinTech company Forteil GmbH with the bonify brand at the end of 2022 and achieved great success with 650,000 newly registered users in 2024. Since the end of November 2024, consumers have also been able to view their credit-relevant SCHUFA data digitally and free of charge there – a service that had already been used by 20,000 people by the end of the year.
1Consolidated sales were adjusted for the sales of the SCHUFA subsidiary finAPI due to the announced sale.
Source: schufa.de
