credit rating for EU immigrant

givemecredit

Can anyone give any advice on building a strong credit rating if you are new to the UK and have no credit. I have searched all over the MSE site and across the internet and all the advice assumes you have a credit history albeit good or bad. But what if you don't have any credit history at all?

Some info to work from. My partner is from Germany, has been living in the UK for 10 months. She has lived at 2 addresses in that time. The most recent for 3 months. She is in full time employment and earns a good salary £40k.

She has a basic bank account, has registered on the electoral role and has some household bills being paid via direct debit (inc council tax). She has savings and a strong credit rating in her own country

She has been refused a pay monthly phone with Virgin and has had 2 credit card applications refused over the past 6 months. The latest was one of the ones suggested on this site for people with poor credit ratings.

How does someone new to the UK get a credit card, phone contract and build a credit rating when they are not given the opportunity to build a strong credit rating?

There must be many people arriving in the UK who achieve this? What steps should she go through to build her rating as quickly as possible?

Any advice would be appreciated

Experian_company_representative

Hi Givemecredit,
It sounds like you partner has taken the first steps in building her credit history by registering on the electoral roll and getting a basic account.
It can take a number of weeks for the electoral roll information to be updated on a credit report, if she has only recently registered then it may not be showing yet.
If she has not yet got a copy of her credit report then she may want to do so to check what information is currently recorded, and make sure the electoral roll is showing.
Mobile phone companies in particular use the electoral roll to help confirm the ID of the applicant, so if she is not showing yet this could lead to her being declined.
There are also credit cards aimed at people with low credit ratings, if she were to get one of these and use it a small amount each month, then repay the balance in full, this will help her to establish a credit history.
For more information about this see our Ask James page
Kind Regards
Neil

Yolina

I moved to the UK from France about 20 years ago, what I did to build up a credit history at first was to get a couple of store cards (rather than "proper" credit cards) and then after a year or so, applied for and got a CC. Obviously things were a bit different back then so not sure if it would still work now, but store cards were much easier to get than CCs.
For the phone, maybe have a look at a cheap (c. £10 to £15/month) sim-only contact and just buy a sim free handset rather than go for a monthly plan that includes a handset? Just thinking that if it's a lower monthly payment then they might be more willing.

givemecredit

Thankyou yolina and neil. Useful information.

We've asked for a report of her credit rating so will see if there is anything dodgy in that.

She did try to get one of the cards aimed at people with bad ratings but even got refused for that. Seems a bad credit rating is more trustworthy then no rating.

good idea on the store cards and good point about the timings to get on the electoral roll.

Thanks again

Krisko

I relocated from Norway half a year ago, and I'm not on the electoral roll. I agree that this is really irritating, especially when moving from a very good credit rating in your home country.

She should be able to get a credit card from Capital One and a phone plan with EE (I got turned down by Vodafone).

Thrugelmir

givemecredit wrote: »

She did try to get one of the cards aimed at people with bad ratings but even got refused for that. Seems a bad credit rating is more trustworthy then no rating.

There's only one word. Time.

The longer your partner resides in the UK then the more history will be created.

Far too easy to accumulate debt then simply disappear overseas. From a lenders perspective simply not worth the trouble.

Electoral roll history is key. Even for UK residents some lines of credit require a minimum of 3 years history.

manami_mnm

A basic bank account from HSBC and Credit Builder program from CashPlus helped me building credit history in the UK although I am not on the electoral roll.