Smart read: how we count income from two banks

A bank statement is a list of pluses and minuses; income is something else. Connect two banks to CzynszOK, two accounts in each, and maybe your partner's accounts too, and the statements fill up with transfers between those accounts, refunds, cash deposits, sometimes a salary paid in euros. Adding up every plus would overstate your income, and a landlord would get an "OK" that is not true. So before we say "Czynsz OK" (Polish for "the rent is OK"), we do what we call a smart read: eight rules, written into our algorithm and applied the same way to everyone. Here they are one by one, with examples, including the ones that work against you.

Where the problem comes from

One CzynszOK check can read 2 banks with 2 accounts in each, so 4 accounts per person, and 8 in total on a joint certificate for a couple. All of it for the same 49 zł. That is more data than competitors usually read (often a single account), and more room for mistakes: the same salary can pass through two accounts before it pays the rent. Underneath there is one engine that receives every account at once and decides on the whole picture. There are no two calculators that add up separately and then add their results together.

1. A transfer to yourself is not income

You move 3 000 zł from your current account to your savings account on the 3rd of the month and back on the 20th. On the savings account statement that is "incoming 3 000 zł". If we simply counted pluses, you would earn 3 000 zł more every month. CzynszOK knows the numbers of all your connected accounts, so a transfer that comes from one of them is marked as your own and left out. The same goes between two banks: a transfer from your mBank account to your Revolut account is not an inflow, it is money moving.

On a joint certificate the rule covers the partner as well. If one of you sends the other 1 500 zł every month "for the bills", that is not income for the person receiving it, because we already counted the money as the sender's salary. What counts is the couple's income, not the sum of what circulates between you.

2. One account seen through two banks counts once

Some banks show more in one login than you expect, and some people connect the same bank twice. Every account has a number; if the same number turns up in two connections, we take it once. Income cannot be doubled by accident, or on purpose.

3. Foreign currencies at the NBP rate, with a margin

A salary in euros on a German account or in pounds on a British one counts as income, because rent in Poland can be paid from it. We convert it at the National Bank of Poland (NBP) mid rate on the day of the read and take off a 5% margin. The margin is there so that next month's exchange-rate swing does not turn "Czynsz OK" into something you can no longer afford. We do not invent or negotiate rates, and the certificate shows no amount in any currency, only the answer.

4. Savings for the deposit: "usually", not on payday

If you add the deposit check, we do not ask how much you have today. We rebuild the end-of-day balance for each of the last 90 days, add it up across all connected accounts (and both people on a joint certificate), and check on how many days that combined balance covered the deposit you typed. If it did on most days, the deposit is OK. Money that sits in the account for a week after payday and then disappears will not pass. Neither will a loan taken a week before the check, because it lifted the balance on too few days. The certificate says "Kaucja 5 600 zł: OK" (Polish for "deposit ... OK"), with no balance; if the money falls short, only you see that, and you can pick a lower amount or drop this check. To be honest: the rule cannot tell savings from a loan that has been sitting in the account for three months. We are working on it, but we will not pretend we already have it.

5. Refunds, reversals and cash are not inflows

A refund for a plane ticket, a shop paying you back for shoes, a reversed fee, 2 000 zł paid in at an ATM: all of these are pluses on a statement and none of them is income. We recognise them by the transaction type and by words in the title. Income is regular money from an employer, from clients if you run a business, from ZUS (Polish social security) or from the 800+ child benefit. Yes, that means a person who lives on cash will not get income confirmed by us. We say so plainly before you pay, and point out that an analyst or documents will serve you better.

6. One name across every bank

Every bank gives us the name of the account holder. The name from the first bank you connect goes on the certificate, and every further bank has to confirm it. "KOWALSKI JAN" and "Jan Maria Kowalski" are the same person; "Anna Nowak" on a second account is not, unless it is your joint certificate and Anna connected her own bank, with her own e-mail and her own consent. That way nobody can attach a friend's account to lift the result, and a landlord knows that both names on a couple's certificate came from banks, not from a form.

7. Rent recognised by title or by regularity

Rent history is an optional check. We look for transfers with "czynsz", "najem", "wynajem" (the Polish words for rent and renting) or "оренда" in the title. When the title says "Przelew" ("transfer") and nothing more, we look at whether the same amount goes to the same person every month: that is rent too. Fees to a housing cooperative or a residents' association are treated separately, because that is not renting from a private person. If you paid in cash or from an account you did not connect, this check simply will not appear on the certificate; and there will be no "no" either.

8. A 13th salary and sick leave evened out

One unusual month should not set the result, up or down. A December with a 13th salary does not make you someone who can afford more, and a February on sick leave does not take away rent you can normally afford. We average 12 months after dropping the highest and the lowest, and the maximum rent we can certify is a fixed share of that average, rounded down to 10 zł. One rule for everyone, kept in a parameter file whose version we record with every certificate.

What a smart read will not do

• It will not see cash or accounts you do not connect.
• It will not tell a loan sitting in the account for three months from savings.
• It will not check debt registers: we do not query BIK, KRD or BIG.
• It will not convert currencies missing from the NBP table; we skip such an account and tell you.
• It will not assess creditworthiness. It answers one question: is this rent OK.

All the rules, with thresholds and worked numbers, are in our algorithm document, and its identifier and checksum go on every certificate. If you disagree with a result, write to pomoc@czynszok.pl and we will explain exactly what we counted; a landlord gets nothing beyond what the verification page shows. What that page shows, and how to read it, is in our guide how to check a tenant certificate. How CzynszOK compares with documents, analysts and registers is in our honest comparison of tenant verification in Poland.

Questions

Does a transfer between my own accounts count as income?

No. We recognise transfers between your connected accounts by their numbers, also across two different banks, and leave them out. Otherwise one salary would count twice.

Does a transfer from my partner count as my income?

Not on a joint certificate, because we count the couple's income together and your partner's money is already counted on their side. On a certificate for one person, a transfer from a partner is an inflow from a private person, and it counts only when it arrives regularly every month, like any other steady inflow.

What about a salary in euros or pounds?

It counts. We convert it at the NBP mid rate on the day of the read and take off a 5% margin. The certificate shows no amount in any currency, only the OK next to the rent you typed in złoty.

How do you check that I have the deposit?

We add up the balance of all connected accounts at the end of each of the last 90 days and check on how many days it covered the deposit you typed. If it did on most days, the deposit is OK. Money that is there only on payday will not pass.

Can I add a family member's account to raise the result?

No. The name from every bank has to match yours, and someone else's account is rejected. The exception is a couple's joint certificate, where the other person connects their own bank with their own e-mail and their own consent.

How many banks can I connect?

2 banks with 2 accounts in each, so 4 accounts; a couple 8 together. All for one price of 49 zł, from the Enable Banking list of more than 2500 banks in more than 30 European countries.