How Petro-Canada Patrons Can Check the Credit Score for Free if They Use an RBC Credit Card

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Recently, in late 2017, Petro-Canada came out with an offer to reduce the price of gasoline and to award extra Petro-Points is you buy their gasoline using a credit card issued by RBC. We signed up our RBC card for this promotion and that included setting up the RBC card for online access. While snooping around the RBC credit card website, I discovered we can check our credit score for free.

What’s a Credit Score and Why Did I Check Ours?

There are two major credit monitoring agencies in Canada: Equifax Canada and TransUnion Canada. They both collect financial information on you which they use to create a ranking called a credit score. Financial institutions may use some generic or customized form of this credit score as part of their decision on whether to offer you loans or credit and at what interest rate.

We don’t actually need to borrow any money as our mortgage is paid off and we don’t do renovations until we’ve saved the money to pay for them. Our emergency fund can tide us over when the unexpected happens like getting a car totaled on the 401 or having the roof leak a few years before we planned to replace it.

Nevertheless, like many people, I’m very curious. I wanted to know what our credit score was but I did not want to pay to see it. (You can check your credit record free once per year by asking the bureaus to mail you the info. That won’t include your actual credit score, though, just the facts on which it is based.) So I clicked on the RBC link.

Checking Your TransUnion Credit Score for Free for RBC Credit Card holders

You’ll need to have online access to your RBC credit card. NOTE: You don’t need to have a bank account with RBC to set up your credit card online. At this time, we don’t have an RBC bank account.

  1. Sign on to your RBC account.
  2. Midway down the right side of the screen is the My Services section.
  3. Look for and click on the link: View Your Credit Score
  4. Read through the terms and conditions. If you can live with them, click on the link to accept the terms.
  5. Wait for the CreditView Dashboard to appear.
  6. Your TransUnion Credit Score will be displayed.

That’s it! You now know one version of your credit score.

Ours is not 900 but it’s high enough that we find it acceptable.

Playing with the RBC CreditView Dashboard Score Simulator

Further down the same page is a group of text boxes under the heading Score Simulator.

For some weird reason, it is encouraging you to see what the impact is of various actions on your credit score. For example, you can check what might happen to your score if you added 2 Credit Cards with limits of $2500, Raise the Credit Limit of one card by $10000 and Added a Personal Loan for $30 000.

  1. Type your scenario in the applicable text boxes.
  2. Click on the Simulate button.

Interestingly enough, it made almost no difference to our credit score. Your mileage may vary!

I’ve probably agreed to receiving all sorts of targeting marking from RBC by using this free credit score check, but it was still a fun exercise. I can’t say that it will change my money management plans much though.

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How to Add or Delete a Bill Payee to Pay My Credit Card Bill at Simplii Financial

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For a variety of reasons, including 3 gas stations within a few km of our home, we often buy gas at Petro-Canada. In 2017, they stopped offering a Petro-Canada branded credit card and instead started offering a discount if you pay for gas using a credit card issued by RBC. So we got an RBC card and set it up online to get Petro-Points. Then I needed to add the RBC card to our list of Bill Payees at Simplii Financial so that I could pay the credit card bill when it arrived and delete the listing for our old CIBC Petro-Canada card.

Adding a New Account to Pay Bills to from our Simplii Financial Chequing Account

  1. Sign in to your Simplii Financial account/s.
  2. From the list down the left-side of the screen, click on Pay Bills to expand the list of links.
  3. Then click on the link: Set Up Bill Payments
  4. If necessary, also click on the button: Add Bills

The Add/Edit Bills Page

  1. Start typing the company’s name in the text box Enter billing company name:
  2. Then click on the Search button.
  3. Two columns of possible suggested bills will be displayed.
    Click on the appropriate one.
    For example, I clicked on VISA, ROYAL BANK/BANQUE

The Enter Account Number and Nickname Page

If you want to recognize your bill payee easily, you may want to give it a nickname.
For example, I’m calling this RBC Visa account Petro-Can Gas

  1. If so, in the Nickname text box, type a helpful nickname for the account.
  2. Type the payment account number provided on your bill in the Account Number text box.
    Simplii may give you some hints about how to find the correct number. For RBC VISA it shows a little diagram of where it is on the billing statement.
  3. Click on the Continue button.

The Add Bills – Verification Pop up Window

If the bill looks correct, click on the Confirm button.

You should get the message:
You have successfully registered the following billing company.

If you’re like me, you’ll now want to test that the setup went through properly. I’m going to make a payment of $1 and then check my RBC credit card account each business day to see if the payment comes through properly.

To Pay a Bill Using Simplii Financial

  1. Sign in to your Simplii Financial account/s.
  2. From the list of links on the left side of the screen, click on Pay Bills.
  3. A list of your choices to pay will be displayed.
    Read the info at the bottom of the screen and note it will take 3 or so business days to process the payment.
  4. Type the amount you want to pay in the text box for the bill you want to pay.
    I typed $1 beside the RBC Visa account.
  5. If necessary, change the date for the payment by clicking on the drop-down lists for Month, Day and Year.
  6. Click on the Continue button.

The Pay Bills – Verification Pop up Window

  1. Review the details of your proposed bill payment.
  2. If they look ok, click on the Confirm button.

You’re done!

Now I’ll just have to make sure that the $1 shows up as a payment on my credit card account in a few days. Then when I get the bill in the mail I’ll be confident that the payment link is working properly.

How to Remove a Bill Payee from Your Simplii Financial Bill Payment List

Now to get rid of the old CIBC Petro-Canada card from the bill payment list.

  1. Sign in to your Simplii Financial account/s.
  2. From the list of links on the left side of the screen, click on Pay Bills.
  3. From the expanded list of links, click on Add/Edit Bills.
  4. Your list of possible bills is displayed.
    Find the line for the bill you want to remove.
    At the end of the line is a link: Delete Billing Company.
    Click on the appropriate Delete Billing Company link.

The Delete Bills – Verification Popup Window

  1. Review the details of the bill to be deleted.
  2. If it’s correct, click on the Confirm button.

You’re done!

  1. Sign out of your Simplii Financial accounts.
  2. Clear your browser history and cache.
  3. For extra security, close your browser session.

So that’s all tidied up now!

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