- Affordability: 3/5
- Comprehensiveness: 4.5/5
- Ease-of-Use: 4/5
- Overall Value: 3.5/5
Best for:
- Improving credit scores quickly
- Consolidating and paying off debt
- Individuals with bad credit
About Marble Financial
Marble Financial started in 2016 as a “FinTech” company with the goal of helping Canadians rebuild their credit in order to have access to prime lending. You’ll achieve this goal through the MyMarble portal, your financial headquarters that lets you connect your banking information, review your spending habits, see recommendations from Marble Financial, monitor your credit score, and complete tasks to help you raise your credit score. Through the portal, you can access tools to help you improve your financial future, including:
- Maestro – MyMarble’s financial literacy education platform has over 25 expert-curated courses covering credit, budgeting, and debt.
- Fast-Track – a loan that will allow Canadians to pay off consumer proposals.
- Score-Up – “smart” consultation software that can help you achieve your desired credit score ASAP. This online tool uses an algorithm to analyze your credit score and then tells you what action to take to increase your credit score as quickly as possible. It will even tell you which days to make purchases and which days to make payments in order to boost your credit score to the max.
Key Features
As mentioned above, this product’s strength lies in the MyMarble portal. This portal is your financial dashboard and your gateway to a better financial future. Here are the key features:
- Beautiful user interface: The MyMarble app and website are nothing short of gorgeous. Once you’ve connected your accounts you’ll be able to browse your financial insights in style.
- Your accounts in one place: See your bank accounts, credit cards, and debts all in one centralized dashboard.
- Credit score monitoring: Monitor your credit score with monthly updates to see how your actions are positively or negatively impacting your score.
- Expert insight: The algorithm quickly and easily offers you expert insight into your finances, and generates a tailored course of action for meeting your goals.
- Personalized recommendations: MyMarble’s software makes personalized recommendations to help you meet your goals including roadmaps for rebuilding your credit or increasing your credit scores.
- Financial literacy through Maestro: Maestro offers over 25 courses on budgeting, credit, and debt, along with quizzes to test your knowledge and completion certificates.
- Highlighted habits: connect your accounts to find out where you are wasting money and see spending trends for 3, 6, or 12 months.
- Prequalified for loans: Find out which Marble Financial loans you are pre-qualified for, and apply directly for Fast Track loans from your dashboard.
- Score-Up credit repair: Personalized recommendations on how to improve your credit score based on your real-world financial details.
- Fast Track: Apply for a loan to boost your credit score, exit consumer proposal, and get you back to borrowing through mainstream banking within 24 months. Interest rates range from 19.99% to 24.99%.
Pricing
You can choose from four different pricing levels: Freemium, Basic, Pro and Premium. Each plan includes your credit score and summary, budget analysis, credit and banking insights, and access to Maestro Financial Literacy courses. Here’s a breakdown:
Freemium – $0
If you’re just looking to build the foundations of financial fitness at no cost, this is the plan for you. The Freemium Plan provides you with Beginner Recommendations to help you understand the basics of your finances and how you can best utilize MyMarble.
Basic – $9.99 per month
The Basic plan is geared toward those who are ready to achieve their financial goals and get their finances in order. This is a level-up from the Beginner plan and includes Intermediate Recommendations, which dig deeper into your finances and provide you with more in-depth recommendations on what your next steps are to improve your financial fitness.
Pro – $19.99 per month
If you want to grow your financial knowledge and get that extra push to reach your goals, go Pro. Including all the features in our other plans, the Pro Plan provides you with Advanced Recommendations, which are even more detailed, prescriptive, personalized, and target-driven recommendations on what steps to take to increase your credit score and improve your financial wellness.
Premium – $29.99 per month
The Premium Plan helps you reach and broaden your goals in the fastest possible way. This plan includes Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced recommendations to make sure you don’t miss a thing when mastering your finances.
MyMarble Premium also provides you with access to Score-Up — a FinTech solution that will help you increase your credit score ASAP. By utilizing Point Deduction technology and Target Score and Budget Simulators, the software analyzes your credit report to create a fast and clear path to build your credit score. You can follow our real-time recommendations to make a positive impact on your credit score, giving you confidence for future financial events, all within your budget. In addition, Score-Up provides you with access to your credit report and allows you to track for errors and omissions.
Pros and Cons
Freemium level offers free financial literacy courses
Access to expert recommendations and real-time analysis of your spending
Ability to securely connect bank accounts and see your finances in one place
Personalized advice
Optional extras like consumer proposal loans and credit building tools
Fast Track optional consumer proposal loans have high maximum interest rate of 24.99% and costly administrative fees
Limited to residents of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador
How Does Marble Financial Compare?
The end goal for Marble Financial products is to help Canadians raise their credit scores and pay off debt. While their products have some great aspects, especially the free MyMarble portal and Maestro modules, their paid products have competitors on the market with similar goals and lower rates/fees that may be a better option for your needs.
Get a Low-Interest Balance Transfer Credit Card
Consolidating debt and paying it off is an easy way to help boost your credit score and one of the easiest ways to do this is by using a balance transfer credit card wisely. These cards allow you to transfer your credit card debt to a new card with a much lower interest rate – some even as low as 0% for a promotional period of time which will give you the chance to play catch up without having to worry about high-interest payments. Take a look at our top picks for the best balance transfer credit cards and low-interest credit cards to see if they may work for you.
Get a Personal Loan
The interest rate of Marble’s Fast-Track loan ranges from 19.99% to 24.99%. The 19.99% interest for the low end of the spectrum is quite high. However, the maximum of 24.99% interest on a personal loan is actually quite reasonable if you have bad credit. While not as low as a low-interest credit card, Fast Track has the potential to be surprisingly fair compared to other bad credit loan options on the market.
If you are in need of a smaller loan, Fast-Track is not a bad choice, but still, take the time to compare other personal loan options in Canada as some other lenders offer rates starting around 5%. Depending on your situation, you can also find a list of bad credit loans here. For instance, if you have bad credit, Refresh Financial offers cash-secured personal loans to help you rebuild your credit score. How it works: you take out a loan, but instead of receiving the funds immediately, you make your payments before the funds are released. The interest rate is 19.99%, and you can borrow up to $25,000. Every payment you make is reported to credit bureaus, helping improve your credit score.
Get a Credit Card for Bad Credit
If you have a low credit score it can be hard to get a credit card that will allow you to help build your credit. However, there are options beyond Score-Up.
Signing Up for MyMarble
Signing up for the MyMarble portal is easy and can be done in just a few short steps. Here’s what to expect from the process.
- Step 1: Sign up online through Marble Financial’s website.
- Step 2: Connect your bank accounts to the dashboard.
- Step 3: Let MyMarble do the work of analyzing your spending and debts to make personalized recommendations on how to improve your credit score.
- Step 4: Sign up for optional add-ons like Fast Track Loans and Score Up as needed. Score-Up is now included in MyMarble Premium.
The Verdict
Are Marble Financial products worth it? Generally speaking, the MyMarble portal and Maestro financial modules are solid starting points for Canadians who are looking to boost their credit rating pronto. These totally free tools offer a comprehensive view of your finances in a visually attractive dashboard and allow you to see trends and areas that they can improve. The free Maestro financial modules can help toward getting your finances back on track.
However, paid products like Score-Up and Fast Track loans have fees that may be a deterrent for some cost-conscious Canadians, and you may want to look at more affordable options on the market.
Marble Financial products are by no means bad products; they just aren’t necessarily the best options out there. It’s very dependent on your personal circumstances – so take the time to do some research and compare products to make sure you get the best deal.