How does my credit report affect me?

The contents of your personal credit report can have a bearing on whether or not you are given credit. Factors other than the information held on a credit report may contribute to a lending decision as well (such as the information you provide on your application form), but your credit report is important.

Your credit report can affect your ability to:
• Get a loan
• Get a credit card
• Obtain a mortgage

It's important to be aware that different companies use different methods when they are deciding whether or not to give you credit.
You do not have a single credit score and credit scores are not shown on your credit report

Get it right!
As the information held by credit reference agencies is used to determine what credit you can obtain, it is important those details are right.

Click here for a free 30-day trial and a free copy of your credit report

Other information that appears on your credit report

A record of lenders who have searched your file as a result of you applying for credit will be shown on your file for 12 months. This information can help lenders identify any unusual credit activity or over commitment.

If your file specifies ‘unrecorded enquiries’, this shows that a company has searched your file for non-lending purposes. However, this information is shown only to you, not to lenders searching your file in order to make a lending decision. Lenders may also search your file to give you a credit quotation. These are recorded as quotation searches so other lenders do not mistake them for credit applications.

Agencies make a record (known as a ‘footprint’) on your report to show that a file has been applied for in your name and address, but this will be shown only to you and not to lenders.

Your previous addresses, or any addresses you may use for correspondence, may be listed on your credit file. These links are created by account information moving between addresses, as a result of lenders checking your records at previous addresses, or as a result of information you give to the credit reference agency.

Your credit file will show the two addresses that are linked, how the link was created, and the date and source of the link. The link will only be broken when agencies are asked to do so by the organisation that created the link.

CIFAS
CIFAS is a system developed in consultation with the Office of Fair Trading and the Office of the Information Commissioner. It aims to detect and prevent fraud, and so protect innocent people whose names, addresses or other details are used fraudulently by others in order to get credit. A CIFAS warning on your file does not mean you are being accused of fraud. Organisations who are members of CIFAS examine credit applications very carefully, and may contact you to make sure you have applied for the credit. They will not automatically refuse applications from people with warnings on their file.

GAIN - Gone Away Information Network
Credit reference agencies are members of GAIN, a network through which lenders share information on customers with debts who have moved home without telling their lenders of a forwarding address. The information may include both the address the customer moved from and any address the customer has since been recorded as living at.

If you share a financial responsibility with someone else, for example a joint court judgment, a joint account or a joint application for credit, this will be shown on your credit file together with who you share the responsibility with and when the connection was created.

Agencies may be told about any other names you have been known by and your file will show who gave them the information.

Information about other people
Your file may include financial information about members of your family who live, or have lived, with you. Lenders can take this information into account when assessing an application you make for credit. By law this information must be included on your credit file because you must be shown all the information that is available to lenders, whether or not they use it.

The rules on using information about other people are changing and, in the future, financial information about other people will not be included on your file. After these changes have been made, only your own credit history, and that of anyone you share a financial responsibility with, will be provided to a lender.

To view your personal credit information that lenders are currently basing their credit decisions on, apply online for a credit report from Experian, the UK’s largest credit reference agency.

You will also receive a 30-day free trial to the CreditExpert Monitoring Service from Experian.

Click here for a free 30-day trial and a free copy of your credit report

Next,  WHAT TO DO IF YOU'VE BEEN REFUSED CREDIT

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