With the impacts of Covid-19 still adversely affecting many industries and consumers, there’s never been a better time to have a good understanding of your financial resumé. The good news is, it’s very easy to access your score free of charge, along with helpful advice and guidance on how to increase it.
Your credit score is generated by a Credit Referencing Agency or CRA. There are three in the UK; Experian, Equifax and TransUnion (formerly CallCredit). Somewhat confusingly, while each of the CRA’s use similar information to generate your score, they interpret and weight the information slightly differently, which means your score from each will be different – this is the same for everyone though.
Most of the time, it’s best to focus on one score and work towards either maintaining it (if already high) or increasing it over time. Although online site Debt Camel (debtcamel.co.uk) notes that there are “four situations where you must check all three credit reference agencies” – these are:
- You have been rejected for credit and are surprised about this. There may be errors on your credit file or even identity theft;
- You want a mortgage or car finance in the next year. Even if you think your credit file is spotless, still check all three CRAs. You don’t want a mortgage application rejected because of some error that will take months to correct!
- You want to clean up your credit records after insolvency.
- You want to add a Notice of Correction to your credit records. The three CRAs may not all show the same thing, so you need to check them all individually and correct them separately.
If none of the above apply, then the most commonly used (and therefore most representative) of the UK CRAs is Experian. They’ve teamed up with Martin Lewis’s MoneySavingExpert.com to create ‘Credit Club’ which not only provides your score but you can also self-assess your ability to afford different loans and find ways to boost your score.
Useful Sites
Experian: https://www.experian.co.uk/consumer/experian-credit-score.html
Equifax: https://www.equifax.co.uk/Products/credit/credit-score.html
TransUnion: https://www.transunionstatreport.co.uk/
Credit Club: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/creditclub/
Sources: https://debtcamel.co.uk/experian-or-equifax-which-is-best/
