Here at ScoresMatter we want to help you to secure the digital you and that includes your Credit Score. In your account dashboard there will normally be hints and tips to help you to either improve or stabilise your credit score but we wanted to give you our top 5 tips:
- Check your credit report and challenge any parts on it that do not look correct. If there is additional credit or borrowing information on your credit report that is not correct, by removing this it will automatically help to improve your credit score.
- Check your credit utilisation, this is very important, you need and want credit but do not want to use too much and also need to be seen to be paying back any additional borrowing. It’s a fine balance and by checking your credit report it will help you to ensure you have that balance correct. A simply calculation is below for you;
- Make sure you are registered on the electoral roll, this one is free and simple to do and will help to improve/stabilise your credit score too. Always check your address history too to make sure this is correct, as in point 1!
- Make sure you pay off any bills or loans on time, missing a regular payment will go against you so making sure you always meet the minimum payment for any card or credit taken out will ensure you do not negatively impact your credit score.
- Last but not least, do not apply for too much credit all at once! This one takes into account point 2. Make sure you are keeping your Credit Utilisation to around the 30% mark. Remember the difference between a Hard Inquiry and a Soft Inquiry? A hard inquiry is, when you’ve applied for a mortgage, car loan, credit card or other form of credit, and your lender wants to see your credit report to determine if you’re a good credit risk. This appears on your report as a “hard inquiry” and it does affect your credit score, though only by a handful of points. A soft Inquiry is; when sometimes you haven’t made an application for credit with anyone or have checked your affordability for a loan and a credit issuer wants to look at your credit report to consider you for a preapproved or promotional offer. This still appears on your report, but it’s known as a “soft inquiry,” and these soft inquiries don’t affect your credit score at all. You want to ensure you do not have too many hard enquiries appear on your credit report within a short space of time as it will appear to a lender that you could potentially be relying on credit too much. So the great thing about checking your credit is you can keep an eye on this and always challenge any that you think were not made by you too!
We hope our top 5 tips do help you to either improve or stabilise your Credit Score.
Remember, we do offer a 10 day free trial to check not only your Credit Report but all the other features we offer too such as our dark web scan. There is a monthly charge of just £19.95 that applies once your 10 day free trial ends.
Check back next month for more hints and tips on improving the Digital You.