Know your credit history and how you can repair it.
Anyone who has borrowed money or who is registered to pay bills has a credit history.
Your credit history is recorded and stored with credit reporting agencies and updated with new entries as they are reported. In Australia, one of the leading reporting agencies is Veda.
Credit Reports and Credit Scores
Reporting agencies accrue data on you and your financial activities by receiving information and reports from companies that you interact with on a financial basis.
This data may include your credit providers such as credit cards and store cards, records of any infringements and late payments on bills and other loans, enquiries to apply for a loan or credit, bankruptcy and other matters.
The providers provide this information to the reporting agencies, which then summarise the information into a score, ie your credit score. This allows you to compare yourself against other Australians and allows credit providers to easily assess your credit worthiness when you apply for a loan or other credit.
Veda for instance, vary from 1 – 1200 and when you access your score, you can easily see in what percentage of the population you fall in terms of credit.
The higher your score, the more attractive you are to lenders and may be offered better finance deals.
However, if you have not entered into any or many credit contracts, eg you’ve never taken out a loan or had a credit card, then you won’t automatically have a high score. It’s a complex area, but simply put, there is no way of judging you if there is no data to analyse and assess.
Credit defaults, late payments etc will affect your score.
Having no documentation will also affect your score. If you are newly arrived in this country and have not entered into credit arrangements, there may be little data available.
You can access your own credit report and credit score at Equifax and see how you rate
Improving Your Score and Repairing Your Credit Report
If you have had a loan or credit card application not approved, it is likely due to your poor credit report and it may be worth investigating ways to improve your report so you can more easily be approved for loans.
Jade Boat Loans can still arrange attractive loans for people with poor credit – More About Bad Credit Boat Finance
There are some simple ways that you can work towards improving your credit score:
- Pay your bills on time so you don’t have a negligent payment recorded against you.
- Keep track of your bills – if you are moving house, don’t overlook advising providers of your new address or have all your mail re-directed to your new address so bills don’t go astray. Mail re-direction is arranged at your local post office.
- Know what issues work against your credit score: one of these is making numerous applications for credit or loans, sometimes unnecessarily. Every time you apply it is recorded on your report. This makes your profile less attractive to lenders so only apply for credit when required and if you do want to compare finance deals, narrow your selection to a few key companies rather than getting quotes from a large number of lenders.
If you have major issues with your credit report, there are credit repair companies that may be able to assist you.
Protect Your Identity
Identity theft and fraud is unfortunately a growing problem across the world. This can occur from theft of your bills and personal documentation from your letterbox, using unsecured sites for online shopping, card skimming and scanning scams and issues beyond your control such as hacking of sites where your personal details are stored.
There are some simple ways that you can reduce some of the risk of identity theft and protect yourself, your finances and your credit report:
- Install a highly secure mailbox or get a post office box or mailbox service to receive all your mail
- Have as much documentation, bills and other personal details sent to you via email rather than by post
- Get RFID holders or wallet to protect your cards from scanning
- Only ever use secured payment gateways when shopping online
- Dispose of financial records, bills, bank and credit card statements via shredder rather than straight into the bin
- Check your bank accounts on a regular basis and report any inconsistencies or unauthorised activity to your bank immediately
- Keep your computer security software up to date and if you use mobile devices such as tablets and mobile phones for financial transactions, ensure you have security software installed on those also.
- Never open any suspect email attachments as they may contain programs to steal your personal details and ID
- Take care about what and how much detail about yourself you reveal to others, especially via social media sites. You would be surprised how quickly a fraudster can steal your identity with only basic information such as your name, phone number, mother’s maiden name and other simple details.
Jade Boat Loans are specialists in finance and will be able to provide you more information on credit ratings and reports and how it effects your boat finance interest rates.
Contact Jade Today On 1300 005 233 or visit our home page About Boat Loans
