M&S bank hiking up the APR

ReadingTim

Sure, it sucks when someone doesn't rate you as highly as you rate yourself but maybe Experian will lend you fifteen grand, what with that 'perfect 999' and all....

redpete

I then went and checked my credit score on Experian. A perfect 999. I called M&S back and asked for an explanation and told them I’d checked my score. What else could it be? I don’t have anything else that could affect their decision, surely.

They do have more information, e.g. maybe info about your income and other outgoings, their own risk criteria, their own weighting on the data that exprian use to come up with the number, their own priorities for marketing and pricing loans...

They said they could give me no further information, for my own privacy and security.

Not entirely honest, it's as much to protect their own commercially sensitive info and preventing people submitting applications that are adjusted to meet their lending criteria.

Nebulous2

A few quick points:

5.8% is still a very good rate in historical terms.

51% of those accepted have to get the headline rate.

Those who top the rate tables can afford to be very choosy, as people with good histories will gravitate there. You might find it less difficult to be in the hallowed 51% for a lender offering 3.5%.

Of course we're all guessing. There might be something about you, such as high debt to income levels, the fact you're consolidating an existing loan, or the purpose for the loan, which increases your risk on their model.