They're allowed to charge for the service of assessing a person's credit risk and attesting to it. In the common case you just get a document saying effectively

They're allowed to charge for the service of assessing a person's credit risk and attesting to it. In the common case you just get a document saying effectively "we have no negative information on file regarding this person". But they also provide what's essentially a vanity service where they give you a more detailed breakdown of the information they have on you. They're also allowed to charge for that. The issue is that under the GDPR, they're also required to provide all the information they have on you, for free. Now this obviously conflicts with their nice side business, so they're trying to herd people towards the paid offering. I don't think making the free GDPR export more prominent would threaten their core service. After all, businesses interested in your creditworthiness don't want to make too many complex decisions themselves, so they'll continue to rely on Schufa's stamp of approval instead of wading through the details of your financial history. (And how do they know you're not hiding something from them?)