France (and other countries) does not use a FICO score. They mostly rely on your current income and to sometimes on your current wealth as collateral. But you

France (and other countries) does not use a FICO score. They mostly rely on your current income and to sometimes on your current wealth as collateral. But you cannot simply take the money, and never payback either. France has a central bank that has the power to freeze all your bank accounts/assets on the push of a button. Any bank can contact the central bank (even for an overdraft... happened to me :) and freeze immediately all bank accounts, credit cards, etc. And I don't know about loans for goods, but for real-estate, like here, until you paid your loan, the property is basically owned by the bank. Past behavior is not necessarily helping a lender to guess your capacity to payback in the future. If you act in good faith, you still can have issues (lost your job, health issue). As long as you sort it out the best you can with the lender, maybe you should not be punished for it later. I guess it is different risk management.