While it might seem daunting at first, understanding your credit score check – and how it represents you to lenders – is the smartest way to improve your chances of a successful credit application. When you receive a credit score report, you’ll get a comprehensive summary of the following:
- How much you have borrowed in the past
- Your repayment history for any credit cards or loans
- Any credit limits currently in place, e.g., on a credit card
- How many applications you’ve made in the past, and how regularly
- Any bankruptcies, defaults, or court judgements attached to your name
- An estimate of your ability to pay your bills on time
This data is assessed in various ways by credit reporting bodies, and your eligibility as a borrower is reflected in the corresponding credit score. Finding out ‘what is my credit score’ and understanding patterns in your credit behaviours can be confronting at first, but a Credit Score Finder might be of help to you. That’s why MoneyMe has created the tools to help you start shaping your financial future for the better
What is the credit score range?
There are three main credit reporting agencies in Australia: Experian, illion, and Equifax. Each has a slightly different manner of reporting on a credit score check, but all use a ranked system to award a single credit score to their customers. Typically, this is between 0 and 1,000. But just what is a good credit score, and how do you get a good credit record?
Simply put, the higher your credit score, the less risk you present to lenders – and the more likely they are to release credit to you at low interest rates. A high score is achieved through consistent, timely repayments on your lines of credit, such as a mortgage, personal loan, or credit card, as well as bills.
The lower your credit score, the more likely you are to be offered less credit, at higher interest rates – or declined outright in your application, depending on your specific circumstances. That’s because a low credit score generally reflects a history of missed or late payments, multiple applications for credit within a short period, or other inconsistencies related to your finances and debts.
But a bad credit score isn’t all bad news. Thanks to Comprehensive Credit Reporting, your credit is now assessed on more than just any blemishes you might have on your record. When a bank runs a credit score check against you, they’re now privy to your credit behaviours, as well as your lines of credit, limits, application history, and repayments. This means they’re able to assess trends in your credit – e.g., while you might have been through a rough patch 18 months ago, they can also see you’ve demonstrated a history of consistent, timely repayments for the past 12 months. These are considered positive credit behaviours and help create a more positive – and accurate – borrower profile.
How to fix a bad credit score?
A bad credit score check can impact the outcome of your application for credit in a few different ways.
Depending on the areas of assessment reflecting risk to the lender – e.g., missed payments vs multiple maxxed-out lines of credit – you might get an offer less credit than you’d applied for, or a much higher interest rate than you’d hoped. Or you may simply be declined.
As tempting as it might be to try your luck until you get an approval, it’s important not to shop around and apply for multiple credit products within a short amount of time. That’s because every time you make an application for a line of credit, it’s recorded on your credit file. You should avoid having multiple loan or credit card applications with banks within a short period because they can damage your credit score significantly – and make each future application even less likely to be approved.
If you’ve run a credit score check and things aren’t looking as good as you’d like, learning how to improve credit score is easy.
First, assess your current financial situation. If you’ve got upcoming bills you don’t think you can pay, it’s important to reach out to the provider before the due date. If you can put a payment plan or financial hardship arrangement in place, you’ll be able to prevent these late payments from impacting your credit account.
Next, close any active credit accounts that you aren’t using. That means credit cards and things like buy now, pay later accounts. If you’ve been wondering ‘does AfterPay affect credit score’ or ‘does Zip Money affect credit score’, the answer is no – unless you miss your repayments. But any account with credit attached to it increases the level of perceived risk to lenders, as does having multiple lines of credit at once. Reducing use of and access to these is a great way to start cleaning up your credit.
If you have multiple debts, consider a debt consolidation loan to minimise your monthly interest and repayments. Provided the single monthly repayment on your debt consolidation loan is lower than that of your current repayments, and you don’t end up paying out more over time due to a longer loan term, it’s likely the most suitable choice to help you become debt-free sooner.
At the very least, it will put you in a better position to make regular, affordable repayments and demonstrate consistent, positive credit behaviours – the biggest key to getting a better credit score check and demonstrating you can balance and manage your debt.
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