Credit card balance on credit reports

sturgeon

My barclaycard 'balance' on my credit report appears to simply be the monthly statement amount, rather than the actual balance (i.e. actual balance could be last months statement of £1,000, plus £500 accrued spending in one week since that time). I always pay my bill in full by direct debit monthly.

Ideally I want to avoid a large recent statement appearing on my credit report, the statement was generated around the 20th July and it is set to come out of my bank 15th August. I have the option to pay now in full, and therefore the full monthly amount will NOT come out of my bank account via direct debit on 15th August, they won't take any payment then.

It seems that on my experian report, the 'balance' is reported on the 10th of each month. If I paid in full today, would my 'balance' be showing as £0 come the 10th of the month, or will it simply still show my last statement amount in full despite paying the bill early before the direct debit comes out?

molerat

CallCredit report latest statement balance, payment and current balance at report date. Equifax report statement balance and payment. The only way to avoid a large sum appearing on the report is to pay it off before it appears on either but an aggregate of payments made in the reporting period is likely to appear. IMO leave it alone to do its own thing, not judging the manual payment date correctly could also mean that the card will take the DD anyway. Why do you not want a large figure appearing on your report, surely it would be a good thing that you are spending and paying it off.

sturgeon

OK thanks. The only reason I don't want a large figure appearing is that I am due to complete on a house purchase in the next 4-5 weeks and don't want the mortgage lender to think the large-ish recent balance is a debt. Despite the fact I spend a few grand each month on a credit card, always paying it off monthly, and this one is about £2,900. So I'd assume they'd see consistent monthly balance being paid in full (assuming they see that detail?) and this would cause no alarm bells, but it is still a 'balance' that could concern a lender that is about to hand over mortgage funds-unless I'm just being paranoid.

The only related topics I could find are genuine CC debt and mortgage applications/completions, whereas mine will be paid in full via DD about 15-20 days before I complete anyway. It's Halifax and I think they use experian for their checks, and having used credit expert I can only see that it reports the monthly balance (which in actual fact is the statement amount rather than rolling balance), rather than more details that you mention CallCredit report, for example.