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If you’re looking for the best credit score finder to get your credit score online, look no further. 

The new MONEYME credit score checker is a great way to check in on your credit health and take control of your finances. By getting yourself up to scratch with your credit score and how it works, you can make smart decisions around the timing of future applications for credit and maximise your chances of success.

There are a number of ways you can access your credit score – but the easiest is by using the MONEYME credit score finder. 

Simply log on to our website and complete the required information to create a secure account. Because credit scores are confidential information, we’ll need you to verify your identity using a minimum 100 points of Australian government–approved ID, so make sure you’ve got this handy when you start. This can include your driver’s licence, passport, medicare card, birth certificate, marriage certificate, and more. 

Once you’ve submitted your credit score finder request, we’ll deliver the results directly to your inbox within one business day, provided we can easily validate your identity to calculate credit score.

The answer to this is twofold: some credit checks do; some – like when you use the MONEYME credit score finder – don’t. That’s because credit agencies have categorised credit checks into two categories: hard and soft. 

A hard credit score check occurs when you apply for a loan or credit product and a financial institution, such as a bank, evaluates your credit as part of a formal application enquiry process. All hard checks are recorded on your credit report, and too many of them in close succession can throw up major red flags and cause your credit score to drop.

Checking your own credit, however, is considered a soft credit check. A soft check is not recorded on your credit report and has no impact on your credit score. In fact, you can check your credit as many times as you like using free tools like the MONEYME credit score finder without damaging it – something a lot of people are unaware of. 

Other types of soft credit checks that don’t have an impact on your credit score include situations where a landlord or employer might run a credit check (with your permission, of course) or where a bank runs a pre-approval credit check on a personal loan, mortgage, or credit card. Provided the check is cursory and not a formal commitment, these types of checks will not affect your credit score. 

Hard credit checks from lenders aside, things that will definitely lower your credit score include the following:

• Defaults or missed payments on your personal loan, mortgage, or credit card repayments
• Excessive applications for credit products within a short period
• Late payments on utility bills
• Applying too often for balance transfers
• Payday loans 
• Court judgements or filing for bankruptcy

With the advent of buy now, pay later services, many of our customers wonder ‘does AfterPay affect credit score’ or ‘does Zip Money affect credit score’. The answer is no – unless you fall behind on your payments, at which point your buy now, pay later provider may legally report these to a credit reporting authority. 

An oft-overlooked aspect of credit reporting is checking for errors. While rare, they do happen and are often a result of identity theft, which can severely damage your credit if you’re not careful. Whenever you get a credit score report using a credit score finder, it’s important to make sure that all the information listed – such as your personal details, and the debts and loans/credit cards listed, including their limits – are accurate. If you come across anything that doesn’t add up – especially applications you didn’t make – contact your credit provider or the credit reporting body immediately to submit a dispute to your report and have the incorrect information removed. 

When you use the MONEYME credit score finder, we aim to have your credit score back to you within one business day. 

The reason the report is not instantaneous is due to a few different factors, such as which reporting agency you are requesting the score from, the complexity of information held in your credit history, whether all lenders have updated their information, and how easy it is to verify your identity using legal documents. Occasionally, discrepancies across IDs such as maiden vs married names or similar can cause unforeseen delays. 

There are three main credit reporting and scoring agencies in Australia: Equifax, illion, and Experian. Each agency partners with banks and financial institutions differently and records and assesses your credit history individually. However, all access the same information. At MONEYME, we partner with Equifax – Australia’s largest consumer credit reporting agency.

When using the credit score finder, it helps to know what is a good credit score. Each credit scoring agency has their own system. Equifax credit scores are ranked between 0 and 1,200. Equifax categorises their credit scores as per the following guide:

• 0–509 = Below average to average
• 510–621 = Average
• 622–725 = Good
• 726–832 = Very Good
• 833–1,200 = Excellent

Your credit score is a numerical representation of the risk you represent to a credit provider as a borrower. The higher your credit score, the more likely you are to be approved – and the greater your chances of being offered lower interest rates and higher credit limits. This is because the level of risk associated with lending to you is perceived as low. But what determines risk and how is credit score calculated?

There are several different pieces of information about your personal finance that determine and influence your credit score report. All are reflected in your credit score report, including the following:

• Any current loans or credit cards you may have
• Your repayment history for any credit cards or loans, current or closed
• How much credit you have borrowed in the past
• Any credit limits currently in place (e.g., on a credit card)
• How many applications you’ve made in the past, and at what frequency
• Any bankruptcies, defaults, or court judgements in your name

Your instant credit report will also reflect a perceived estimate on your ability to pay your bills on time. This is a relatively recent addition and one that came about as a result of positive changes to consumer credit reporting law. 

Previously, your credit report only reflected missed payments or defaults – known as negative credit behaviours. If you went through a tough time, it became very difficult to improve your credit score. These days, credit scoring bureaus are also tracking and accounting for positive credit behaviours like your timely, consistent repayments – a method called Comprehensive Credit Reporting. 

Lenders will receive access to the last two years of your repayment history when they run a credit check. That means on-time repayment you make will immediately start counting towards improving your credit.

All of this means that learning how to improve credit score and actively building a better borrower profile is much easier than it used to be – and we think that’s a great thing.