Credit checks
Streamline your hiring process with fast, globally compliant employment credit checks from Zinc. Our pre-employment credit checks help you assess candidate reliability and reduce company risk, no matter where you’re hiring.
Stay compliant with FCA requirements for senior roles
Run checks and get results directly in your ATS or HRIS
Get UK results in less than a minute, and global results in 1 to 3 days
What you need to know
Turnaround times
Available in
149 countries and territories
Including
UK
Ireland
USA
Netherlands
Canada
and more
Make sure your candidates aren’t vulnerable to financial pressure and protect your company from internal fraud risks.
Stay compliant with SMCR
If you’re hiring for an FCA-regulated organisation, credit checks keep you compliant with standard governance for senior or financial roles. Quickly identify financial risk, debt management issues, or other liabilities that could impact employee eligibility.
Prevent internal fraud
CCJs in the UK and Ireland increased 10.1% year over year. When candidates are under extreme financial pressure — including disputes, unpaid debts, bankruptcy, IVA status, or insolvency — it can impact their performance or, in rare cases, increase temptation of internal fraud.
Build a complete candidate picture
When combined with identity checks, address verification, and references, credit checks can help you prove that candidates are accountable, reliable, and trustworthy. They also help you make confident hiring decisions and build a workforce you can trust.
See it in action
Book a demo and choose a time to speak with one of our experts about a custom solution for your business.
3
minutes
Average turnaround time
1
hour
Global credit check results average
6
years
UK credit history
Make compliance simpler with fast, integrated global credit checks.
In-depth global data
Compliance, made simple
All your HR tech, in one place
Seamless candidate experience
A check in 10 seconds.
“Zinc is just very easy to use. It’s not a complicated system, you just go in, and you can send a check within 10 seconds. It saves you a lot of admin time, and you don’t have to worry about chasing people for things because Zinc does that.”
Assess financial responsibility in one quick, non-invasive step.
Step one
Once your candidate has completed their identity verification, we use that data to run the credit check. It runs as a soft-footprint consumer search, so their credit score isn’t affected and only they can see a search took place.
Step two
The search looks back six years for CCJs, insolvency events, IVAs, and civil litigation markers across 143 countries, including common countries for global hires, like Japan and the US. All checks require the candidate’s explicit consent.
Step three
UK results land in your Zinc dashboard almost instantly. Any adverse findings are presented clearly alongside the candidate’s other screening results. The goal isn’t to penalise anyone for past financial difficulty, but to give you the right context for roles where money or financial decisions are involved.
Integrations
Background checks, integrated
Zinc connects directly with your ATS or HRIS at no additional cost. Send checks, get results, and store reports without leaving your preferred platform.
Why businesses love using Zinc
%%An intuitive, easy platform%% with support that's far quicker than other providers. The answers are always reliable, especially when we're dealing with different countries.
%%The candidate experience is excellent.%% Integration was straightforward, the pricing is among the best on the market, and support is quick and consistently helpful.
%%It automates the screening of new employees%% and integrates well with our ATS and HRIS. The initial setup was super easy and we're really happy with the product.
Onboarding takes just a few minutes and %%running checks for international contractors is seamless%%. The pay-per-use model is a huge plus for a small company like ours.
%%It has made my role, and my colleagues' day to day, much easier and more efficient%%, while significantly improving the overall experience for our candidates.
Checks and paperwork sync automatically with our recruitment and HR systems, %%saving us so much time%% not having to check multiple systems. The support teams are always incredibly helpful.
For teams of every size
Flexible background checks
Whether you’re hiring a little or a lot.
Under 20 hires annually
Pay As You Grow
Get started in minutes. Our Pay As You Grow plan is built for lower hiring volumes — a flat rate per check, with no hidden costs or setup fees.
Start checking in minutes, no setup needed
Flat rate per check, no hidden fees
Pay only for what you use
20+ hires annually
Custom solutions
For larger volumes, our experts build a package around your needs. Flexible with your hiring and never expires, with integrations, setup, training, and support all included free.
A custom package built around your hiring
Credit pool that never expires or rolls over
Integrations, setup, and training included free
More from Zinc
Check out more resources, straight from our experts
Start screening in days, not weeks
Combine this check with right to work, references, criminal records and more, across 195 countries, in a single candidate journey.
What’s the difference between an employment credit check and an adverse financial check?
Both draw on financial history, but they serve different purposes.
An employment credit check focuses on civil litigation and credit judgement history:
- County Court Judgements (CCJs)
- Civil litigation markers
- IVAs
- Bankruptcies
- Insolvency events
It's the check most directly referenced in FCA and BS7858 guidance for senior or regulated roles.
An adverse financial check takes a broader approach, drawing on a wider range of data sources, including financial regulatory misconduct lists, to assess financial responsibility and risk factors relevant to employment.
In practice, the two checks can complement each other for senior or highly regulated roles. If you're not sure which applies to a specific role, our team can help you work out the right configuration.
Which UK roles require a pre-employment credit check?
Credit checks are most clearly required, or strongly expected, for roles in FCA-regulated organisations where candidates are subject to SMCR.
That covers Senior Managers, Certified Persons, and Approved Persons. FCA guidance specifically lists financial soundness as a fitness and propriety consideration, making a credit check a natural part of the full screening package for these roles.
Beyond formally regulated environments, credit checks make sense for any role with:
- Direct access to company funds
- Procurement authority
- Treasury or finance sign-off
- Responsibility for client or third-party assets
BS7858 vetting also lists credit checks as a component for security-sensitive roles. For everything else, the decision is usually guided by your internal risk policy.
Does running an employment credit check affect a candidate’s credit score?
No. Zinc runs employment credit checks through TransUnion as a soft-footprint consumer search. It's invisible to lenders and has no effect on the candidate's credit score. Only they can see it happened. It won't appear on their credit file in any way that affects their borrowing.
There's also a useful secondary benefit to running credit checks: the credit check functions as a form of identity confirmation, cross-referencing the candidate's details against credit records. That's valuable in its own right, particularly for organisations running DBS or criminal checks where address and identity confirmation matters.
What adverse financial events does Zinc’s employment credit check look for?
For UK candidates, Zinc's employment credit check looks back six years for: County Court Judgements (CCJs), Individual Voluntary Arrangements (IVAs), bankruptcies, insolvency events, debt relief orders, and civil litigation markers.
Results come straight to your Zinc dashboard and any integrated ATS or HRIS, with adverse findings presented clearly alongside the rest of the candidate's screening data.