How far back and in how much detail can your Bank view your CC balance?

Dajoruna

Right to explain a little bit first.

I have a student account with Natwest as I am currently a post grad studying law. At the beginning of this academic year I took out a career development loan (or whatever they call it nowadays) and had no problem getting it. Now at the time I quoted an entirely accurate CC balance for my barclaycard. Moving forward a year and I have just cancelled my experian 'membership' to cut costs and the guy on the phone pointed out that I had accidently deleted my past address and added my new address rather than have the 2 on the account at the same time. He suggested before I cancel that I update this and then check again to see what difference it makes. Having done so I was surprised to see that it then displays the past year odd of the barclaycard balance complete with how much I paid off every month. Would Natwest have been able to see a year back when I got the loan or would my failure to have put my last address on experian hampered this?

My issue really is this, I am struggling financially and have for the past few months effectively used my CC to pay for most things and then paid parts off with money from my Natwest account. Now given that the banks are tightening up on who they give these loans too now (rumour round university is that hsbc have made it nigh on impossible to get one) I am worried that at the end of the summer when I go back I will still have a fairly maxed card and a (visible) history of continually maxing it then paying it off then maxing it again. With the way the job market is at the moment I am not sure I am going to pick up sufficient work over the summer to have paid it off and sorted my own domestic living costs as well!

I should add I have a training contract with a regional law firm of fairly considerable size so do have a job lined up for when I finish (Natwest asked to see some sort of proof of this when I got the loan originally).

CLAPTON

I don't really understand what you are concerned about

but most companies keep records for six years

details of your credit handling is shown on your credit records

the fact that you max out your credit cards may be a factor when you apply for new credit and also may affect the credit limits of exisiting cards

Dajoruna

CLAPTON wrote: »

I don't really understand what you are concerned about

but most companies keep records for six years

details of your credit handling is shown on your credit records

the fact that you max out your credit cards may be a factor when you apply for new credit and also may affect the credit limits of exisiting cards

I am just worried about how the bank will view me constantly yo-yoing my cc balance when it comes to me applying for my 2nd year professional loan - I am not sure whether they were able to view the full back history when I applied the first time (because of the address issue - hence me asking) so cannot judge whether it is going to be a non factor as they would have judged last year on a cc history that was up and down. Hope that is a bit clearer.

himitsunomogura

The addresses you supply to Credit Expert **only** impact what you can see. A bank would search all addresses you have lived at for the past 6 years, or that you have been linked to ('linked addresses' on your credit report).

Maxing then paying off then maxing shouldnt have much if any of a negative impact, provided you werent going over the limit, and were always making at least the minimum payment.

What Id say is that you make sure when you apply for the loan, your balance on the card is as low as possible, as how close you are to your limit can sometimes have an impact.

Dajoruna

himitsunomogura wrote: »

The addresses you supply to Credit Expert **only** impact what you can see. A bank would search all addresses you have lived at for the past 6 years, or that you have been linked to ('linked addresses' on your credit report).

Maxing then paying off then maxing shouldnt have much if any of a negative impact, provided you werent going over the limit, and were always making at least the minimum payment.

What Id say is that you make sure when you apply for the loan, your balance on the card is as low as possible, as how close you are to your limit can sometimes have an impact.

Cheers, that was the sort of answer/info i was looking for