Scores & Files
Utilisation matters more than most people expect
The proportion of available credit you are using is a strong signal, and it bites well below the limit.
The Credit Question — Borrowing, scored and explained
Scores & Files
The score you are shown is not the score lenders use
Consumer credit scores are a product. Lenders build their own models from the underlying file data.
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Borrowing
Affordability assessment is not the same as a credit check
Lenders ask two separate questions: whether you repay debts, and whether you can afford this one. Passing one does not pass the…
Credit Cards
How credit card interest is actually calculated
The headline rate is annual. What you pay depends on the balance each day and on losing the interest-free period.
Repayment
Balance transfers work until the promotional period ends
A transfer is a tool for clearing debt on a schedule, not a way of making it cheaper indefinitely.
Repayment
The order to repay debts in, and why people argue about it
Highest rate first costs least. Smallest balance first gets finished more often. Both beat paying minimums.
Errors & Disputes
How to get an error off your credit file
Files contain mistakes with some regularity, and the correction process is statutory rather than discretionary.
Protection
Guarantors and joint borrowing carry the whole debt
Guaranteeing a loan is not a character reference. It is an agreement to pay the entire balance.
Borrowing
Buy now, pay later is credit, and it is starting to show
Deferred payment products sit outside older consumer credit rules in many places, and that is changing.
Scores & Files
All scores & files →Scores & Files
The score you are shown is not the score lenders use
Consumer credit scores are a product. Lenders build their own models from the underlying file data.
Scores & Files
Utilisation matters more than most people expect
The proportion of available credit you are using is a strong signal, and it bites well below the limit.
Scores & Files
Checking your own file cannot lower your score
The belief that looking at your own credit report damages it is wrong, and it stops people finding errors that genuinely cost them…
Scores & Files
The credit blacklist does not exist
There is no central list of banned borrowers. What people are describing is usually one of four ordinary and fixable things.
Borrowing
All borrowing →Borrowing
Affordability assessment is not the same as a credit check
Lenders ask two separate questions: whether you repay debts, and whether you can afford this one. Passing one does not pass the…
Borrowing
Buy now, pay later is credit, and it is starting to show
Deferred payment products sit outside older consumer credit rules in many places, and that is changing.
Borrowing
Applying for credit leaves a mark, and clustering makes it worse
Each application creates a search. Several in a short period reads as pressure, whatever the reason.
Borrowing
APR is a comparison tool, not the amount you pay
The annual percentage rate exists so two loans can be compared on one number. It is not the interest you will hand over.
Credit Cards
All credit cards →Credit Cards
How credit card interest is actually calculated
The headline rate is annual. What you pay depends on the balance each day and on losing the interest-free period.
Credit Cards
The minimum payment is engineered to last for years
Paying the minimum is not slow progress. On a typical structure it is a schedule measured in decades.
Credit Cards
Cash advances start charging the moment you take the money
Withdrawing cash on a credit card is a different product from spending on it, priced differently and reported differently.
Credit Cards
Payment allocation decides which balance you actually reduced
A card can hold several balances at different rates, and the order your payment clears them changes the cost substantially.
Repayment
All repayment →Repayment
Balance transfers work until the promotional period ends
A transfer is a tool for clearing debt on a schedule, not a way of making it cheaper indefinitely.
Repayment
The order to repay debts in, and why people argue about it
Highest rate first costs least. Smallest balance first gets finished more often. Both beat paying minimums.
Repayment
What to do first when the payments stop being affordable
The order matters. Priority debts have consequences that credit card arrears do not.
Repayment
Consolidation moves debt; it does not reduce it
One payment instead of five feels like progress. Whether it is depends on the rate, the term and what happens to the cleared…
Errors & Disputes
All errors & disputes →Errors & Disputes
How to get an error off your credit file
Files contain mistakes with some regularity, and the correction process is statutory rather than discretionary.
Errors & Disputes
Mistaken identity and how credit files get mixed together
Files are matched on name, date of birth and address, and when two people share enough of those the data can merge.
Errors & Disputes
Financial association is the link that outlives the relationship
A single joint account can tie two credit files together for years after the relationship, the account and the memory of it have…
Errors & Disputes
Disputing a default the lender insists is correct
When the first response is that the entry stands, the case is not over. It moves to a different process with different rules.
Protection
All protection →Protection
Guarantors and joint borrowing carry the whole debt
Guaranteeing a loan is not a character reference. It is an agreement to pay the entire balance.
Protection
Protecting a credit file against fraud
The controls are free, quick to set up and almost never used until after something has happened.
Protection
What a lender must tell you when it declines you
A refusal comes with information rights in most regulated markets, and asking for them is how you find out what actually went wrong.
Protection
Automated decisions and the right to ask for a human
Most credit decisions are made by software in seconds, and several legal regimes give you a way to require that a person looks…