From financing your new car to applying for a mortgage, your credit score is important to helping you make the biggest financial decisions in your life.
Whether you have bad credit, no credit or okay credit, here are some handy tips you can put into practice to boost your credit score:
Minimise credit applications
The only way to know whether you’ll be accepted for credit is to apply, but doing so leaves a footprint on your credit history. Making frequent applications in a short time can compound that and will raise alarm bells for any lender as you look desperate.
The unfairness of this isn’t lost on us, which is one reason why we built our free ‘apply now’ feature.
This is the fastest way to check if you’ll be pre-approved for car finance by one of our lenders without having any impact on your credit score. Even better, you’ll be pre-approved by one of our lenders within 60 minutes.
Rates from 12.9% APR. Representative APR 18.9% We are a credit broker, not a lender.
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Don’t miss any payments
Defaulting on a payment, even if you’re struggling, can badly impact your credit score for years to come. If you struggle to find the time to go through your finances, setting up a direct debit to repay is the easy solution even if you only opt to make the minimum repayment.
If you are struggling to make payments to your credit provider, it’s always worth a phone call to discuss repayment options and possible pauses.
Use a credit rebuild card
Though a credit rebuild card can seem like a bad idea when you look at the interest rate (some go as high as 34.9%), these cards are ideal if you’re looking to boost your credit score history or rebuild your credit history to evidence that you can be responsible with any future credit.
Money Saving Expert’s golden rules for rebuilding credit are:
- Use your credit card for a small amount of every day spending each month
- Repay in full to avoid the high interest rate
- If you can’t repay in full, repay the minimum every time
Keep this in mind and it should improve your credit history in no time.
Register to vote
Whether you want to take part in the democratic process or not, being registered to vote allows lenders to confirm your address and ID quickly and is the quickest boost for your credit report.
While credit agencies have access to the full register, if you’re worried about your details being shared with other companies you can opt out of the open register during your application. You can register any time at https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote
If you’re not eligible to vote, you can give proof of residency to the major credit agencies (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion) to be verified.
Check for any errors
Speaking of the three major credit agencies, the credit reports they hold on you contain enormous amounts of data and the fact is errors can happen.
It’s free to request and check your credit report thanks to GDPR, and if you find a default which shouldn’t be there you can challenge it by complaining via letter to the lender as well as industry ombudsman. You can also add a notice of correction to your credit report explaining any issues.
