Equifax vs Experian

masonic

redbuzzard wrote: »

No sign of my current account or mortgage on Noddle, presumably because First Direct / HSBC does not contribute data to Call Credit.

I think it could do with how long ago they were taken out. I remember having some old current accounts that were not shown, but everything I've opened in the last few years has shown up (including my FD current account, which must be about 4-5 years old).

redbuzzard

masonic wrote: »

I think it could do with how long ago they were taken out. I remember having some old current accounts that were not shown, but everything I've opened in the last few years has shown up (including my FD current account, which must be about 4-5 years old).

Maybe you're right - I have had the current account since 1989/90, and the mortgage since 2000.

badger09

masonic wrote: »

I think it could do with how long ago they were taken out. I remember having some old current accounts that were not shown, but everything I've opened in the last few years has shown up (including my FD current account, which must be about 4-5 years old).

redbuzzard wrote: »

Maybe you're right - I have had the current account since 1989/90, and the mortgage since 2000.

Correct.

I'll never find it now:o but this crops up periodically and an authoritative poster explained it was because prior to xx/xx/xxxx (sorry, can't remember the date) only defaults and late payments were routinely reported to CRAs.

I have a long standing Barclaycard with a credit limit of £9k which has never appeared

Mikeycastell

Want to view my credit score but find it hard todo

bowlhead99

Mikeycastell wrote: »

Want to view my credit score but find it hard todo

You can get your credit report from each of the main agencies for a nominal fee. It's two quid and very easy to do.

With some of them you can pay more for a premium product which includes a score. But that is less useful because it is not the credit reference agency which decides whether you can have a financial product or not. It is the lender that you're applying to. They use their own score system based on what they prefer to see for their own tastes and preferences when they look at your credit report.

If you are a lender making a secured loan like a mortgage, it is probably good that the person has a lot of credit card space because if things get tight, they can use that flexibility to make sure the mortgage payments are met and they keep the roof over their head - they will not want to default on their house, and the credit card facilities will help them keep making their mortgage payments. If they skip a payment of some sort it would be one of the unsecured cards, not the mortgage. So a large unused credit line or overdraft providing budgetary flexibility and 'liquidity' can be useful.

However if the application was for a credit card, and you already have £50,000 of unused credit card space, the card company might not want to offer you much, because you are unlikely to keep much of a running balance with them specifically (unless it's at 0%), so there's virtually no profit out there for them, and there is a risk that you could suddenly decide to spend the £50,000 and have a monster set of liabilities and they would only be one of many equal-ranking creditors trying to collect.

And then there are factors like whether they prefer a person who always pays off a card in full or pays the bare minimum. The former maybe shows more responsibility, if you're considering giving them a loan, but the latter shows more potential profitability for a credit card firm. Or what is their attitude to preferring a customer who has high credit limits (shows a person has been able to convince other people to extend them credit, but could represent a large monthly outgoing it it was used up); or how about a person with more absolute £ value of unused credit, vs more % unused credit space? I

f you moved house 6 times in the last five years as a serial renter, it could be hard for an unsecured lender to track you down if you skip town yet again. If the application is because lender is giving you a mortgage for you to buy your first house, they probably assume you are not going to move again in the next six months. And their knowledge that you are going to become a homeowner is not something the credit reference agency has.

So, different lenders in different sectors with different customer acquisition models will have different attitudes to credit histories. They can get the same report from a credit reference agency and use it with their own data (which may or may not have been sitting with a CRA) to build their own score. Having the CRA tell you you've got 999/1000 or 900/1000 or 4/5 is nothing other than a rule of thumb.

So, while Badger09 says ignore the score because lenders make their own, and Redbuzzard says it's useful because lenders ask for a general filter before applying their own review process, the answer is likely somewhere between the two.