Shall I cancel them.

tobylyla

Hi, I am new to the forum. 

I have 4 credit cards 2 with a couple of hundred pounds on them, and the third £4K and the forth card with nil. 

I also have £15k loan. All debt has been all long term and not spending extravagantly- life! 

I earn average -£36k pa. and I keep all my payments including all my other bills.

Do you think I should cancel my credit cards to improve my credit score? As I am getting mixed reviews.

Kind Regards 

born_again

Forget you credit score. Its credit history that counts.
If you are not using all the cards then you can get rid of a couple. 

blue.peter

Whatever you do, I'd recommend keeping at least two credit cards - one MasterCard and one Visa, preferably issued by banks other than the one(s) with which you hold your current account(s). This is for resilience: banks and card payment processors occasionally have system outages, so it's helpful to have a backup available. Also, banks have been known to lock people out of their accounts, e.g., if their systems flag a transaction as possibly suspicious. It can take a while for them to unlock them, even if you've done nothing wrong.

Alex9384

Don't cancel multiple cards at the same time. When other lenders later look at your credit files, they don't see the reason why your accounts were closed so they might think there was some problems and your banks terminated your accounts.

If you want, close the least useful card (smallest limit or highest APR, no perks, etc.).
I would recommend to keep your oldest cards. Long standing accounts (if well managed) are a big positive factor on your credit history. Also, having multiple lines of credit shows other lenders that you can handle more credit. Just use them monthly, even if it's just for 10 quids and always pay off in full after the statement is produced, preferably by direct debit so you never forget.
As Peter said, it's good to have one Visa and one MC, just in case one payment network experiences an outage, like Visa did a couple years ago.

Btw, in the UK you don't have "credit score".
The number that credit reference agencies show you is just their estimate of your creditworthiness and it can be very inaccurate. It often goes up and down for no good reasons. Lenders don't see it, they have their own internal scoring systems that differ from lender to lender.

phillw

I don't think there is a single answer.

Some lenders will see you have a load of credit cards with good credit history and see that as a positive, some will see it as a negative.

Credit cards are good for a direct debit once a month, which can be useful on current account perks/switches.

chanz4

I was told by a mortgage broker, cancel any debt even if not used as effects affordability