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Tag: credit score

Tips on How to Quickly Boost Your FICO Credit Score
Below are some of the top recent articles in the news that include tips on how to rebuild and boos your FIVO credit score, improving business credit scores, balance transfer cards, credit and credit rating and bankruptcy.
Tricks and Tips on How to Quickly Boost Your FICO Credit Score
Learn tips about how to boost your score quickly so you can qualify for the best interest rates and lower insurance premiums. You may want to consider transferring balances to 0% rate credit cards (Sponsor Link) in order to pay your credit card debt off faster. The amount of debt are carrying on unsecured credit cards has a big impact on your credit score and you should always focus on lowering your debt more than your credit score- your credit score will naturally rise as you pay down debt.

Or, if your credit score is on the low end (660 or lower- check free services like the Credit Karma to get your score and to get free tips on increasing your score), we always recommend secured cards as a great way to rebuild credit. (Sponsor Link) If you are looking to improve a business score, check out the article below.

How to get a perfect credit score: Tidy up your report to give yourself the best chance of getting a top mortgage rate

Source: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cardsandloansguides/article-5550725/How-perfect-credit-score.html This is Money (please note that this is a UK publication)

Banks reserve their best lending deals for those borrowers with the highest credit scores. To give yourself the best chance of getting a top rate, make some time to tidy up your credit file.

Check up on your report
Your credit report contains information from banks and other lenders, insurers, mobile phone firms and some utility suppliers. As well as personal information such as your name, address and whether you’re on the electoral roll, it also shows what credit cards, mortgages and bank accounts you have in place, whether you’ve missed any payments, defaulted on debt (payments 30 days late or more are reported in the U.S.) and even just applied for a credit agreement recently.

This information is held by three reporting agencies (also called credit bureaus) — Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. They use it to calculate your credit score which tells financial companies how much risk you are likely to pose as a customer. When rebuilding your credit, you should obtain a copy of your report from each of the three bureaus and can do so by visiting AnnualCreditReport.com.

5 Secrets of Improving Credit Scores in Small Business Finance

Source: Small Business Trends

Most entrepreneurs at one point or another must search for funding to launch or grow their businesses. Startups, by nature, do not have a track record of generating revenue or profits. Nor do they have a history of repaying loans. However, individuals do.

This is why credit scores play such a critical role in small business finance. Before they will make a funding decision, lenders will assess the ability of the borrower to repay debt. With startup ventures, there is often little else to go on, other than the entrepreneur’s personal financial history. Thus, an individual’s credit score plays a major role in a bank underwriter’s decision to approve a small business financing request.

When trying to improve creditworthiness, one factor is to reduce your utilization rate. Hold off on making purchases that are not necessary at this time so that you do not add to the debt that your company has already incurred. Use the savings to pay down debt and ultimately raise your credit score.

Here are some tips for improving your credit score.

1. Review Credit Report

2. Open a Business Credit Card

3. Schedule Automatic Payments

4. Run a Lean Company and Reduce Your Debt

5. Refrain from continuously opening credit cards and shifting debt

https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/03/improving-credit Go here for the full article from Small Business Trends.

3 Steps To on How to Rebuild From Bankruptcy

Source: Forbes
In 2017, more than 700,000 people filed for bankruptcy. A bankruptcy can remain on a credit report for up to ten years, depending upon the type filed. You do not have to wait ten years for the sting of bankruptcy to be removed. A study published this week by LendingTree looked at loan terms offered to more than one million LendingTree users during 2017. It found that:
- After just two years, 65% of people who filed bankruptcy had a score of 640 or higher
- After three years, people who apply for a mortgage with a bankruptcy on their record paid only 19 bps more than people with no bankruptcy
- The LendingTree data confirms what I have experienced during my career in consumer banking: if you have a plan and behave responsibly, you can recover from bankruptcy quickly. If you have filed for bankruptcy, here are three steps you can take to ensure a rapid recovery.
Once your bankruptcy is discharged, open a secured credit card. Typically you can find a secured card that does not charge an annual fee. With a secured card, you must provide a deposit. Your credit limit will be …

Editor’s Note: Shop for secured cards online or through your local bank/credit union. You can often increase a credit score by 50 points or more within 6-12 months and be able to qualify for an unsecured card. If you’re not interested in getting a secured card (they do charge interest if you carry a balance), then consider a service like Self Lender (which has recently rebranded as Self) or a credit builder loan at your local bank or credit union (you usually have to use your own money to secure the loan). We advise that you avoid credit repair companies at all costs (see customer comments below).

Related Articles:

Longest No Interest Credit Card Balance Transfer Offers for 2018

Will it Hurt my Credit Score If I Apply for a Balance Transfer

How to Save Money Doing a Balance Transfer Online

How to Find the Best Card for You in 2017 and Early 2018
January 19, 2020
How to Raise Your Credit Score Quickly Using Current Credit Card Trends

According to a recent New York Fed survey, Americans are feeling positive about their ability to get credit. Looking at the trends, we indicate some easy actions to take and will show you how to raise your credit score quickly. In February 2015, the number of people applying for credit cards is up 12.45% from October 2013 and the rejection rate is down 5.55% from the same time periods. That is interesting to know, but you may be asking where the big trend is. That would be in credit limit increases. The number of requests for credit limit increases is up about 10% from 2013 while the rejection rate is down 35.4% from a rejection rate of 37.6% to 24.3%. If you are looking for a quick way to help raise your credit score, it looks like now may be a good time to ask for a credit limit increase.

A credit limit increase can help you and your credit score in a number of ways. First, it gives you more credit spending power. A raise in credit limit may mean that you are simultaneously getting a higher credit score. With a raised limit and no increase in new debt, you just lowered your credit utilization. So, what is that? Your credit utilization makes up the part of your score called “amounts owed”, and that accounts for around 30% of the scoring formula. Your credit utilization shows how much actual credit you are using compared to how much is available to you. So, with all things being equal and no new debt, your utilization lowers, which is a good thing when your credit limit increases. How about that? So, we are looking at a trend of a lower rejection rate for credit limit increases. If it has been a while since you last saw an increase, now may be the time to call your card company and ask.

So, with the ups come the downs in the data world. So, what’s down on this report? As mentioned earlier, the number of rejected card apps is down nearly 6% since October 2013 as well as involuntary account closures, which is down 29.27% since 2013. And, of course, should I mention again that the rejection rate for credit limit increases is down a whopping 35.4%?

It looks like the trends will be continuing with more people asking for credit limit increases over the next 12 months. It is also predicted that there will also be a rise in the number of people applying for credit cards over the next year.

In the 2015 Chase Slate Credit Survey, one sees that although 90% of Americans think that access to credit is important, less than 40% actually know their credit score. But, even more disturbing is that over 50% don’t know the primary driver for credit score. So, let’s see if we can help lower that number. The primary driver of credit score is your payment history. The more on time payments you have and the less delinquent payments, the better the payment history. Having a great payment history helps the most in determining your credit score. If you did not know that before, now you do. You would no longer be part of that over 50% statistic.

These are the primary drivers of the credit score formula.

Your payment history. When looking at your credit report these are the 0s, 1s and other numbers that go across the page over time. You want as many 1s as you can get, which means account current and paid on time.

The next one is the credit utilization or credit already used. You want to stay under 30 percent of your available credit to help qualify for higher credit scores.

The next driver is the negative information found in the Public Record such as bankruptcies, collections or judgments. Needless to say, you do not want these words to appear on your credit report.

If you are just establishing credit or are in the process of rebuilding your credit after some financial troubles, one great way to work on your credit score is to apply for a secured card. It does require a deposit, but it is great for starting out or rebuilding. We have some great cards listed on our Best Credit Building Cards page. You may also find a card or two that is available to those with lower credit scores that do not require a deposit, but those are typically harder to find and may have higher rates than many secured cards. But, if you do not have the money to deposit, the Milestone Gold MasterCard found on that page is an option to consider.

To wrap up, applications are trending up, rejections are trending down and credit limit increase rejections are really trending down. So, to answer the question of how to raise your credit score quickly, within reason, ask for that credit limit increase and see if you can’t qualify for a new card so that you can improve your credit utilization and raise that score. Along the way, stop by sites like BestPrepaidDebitCards.com to collect some great information about credit and tips to improve your score.

If you like what you have read and want to comment or add your thoughts, please comment below.

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April 10, 2015
New Year, New Credit Score

If you’re like millions of other Americans, you began 2015 with at least one resolution to better yourself. Nearly half of us routinely begin January with some sort of commitment to self-improvement, usually to lose weight or perhaps establish a new credit score. Making the resolution is the easy part. Research out of the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, however, shows just how difficult it can be to maintain those good intentions.[pullquote_right] Fully a quarter of Americans don’t last one week with their new habits, and after six months just 46 percent of people maintain committed to their resolutions.[/pullquote_right] Overall, less than 10 percent are able to pull off a permanent change.

Still, just because you haven’t been able to transition from eating burgers to tofu doesn’t mean you can’t take other steps to make 2015 better than 2014. As a start, don’t give up on that resolution to establish a new credit score. Doing so will improve your overall financial health significantly by convincing mortgage and auto loan companies to offer you their best interest rates. Here are a few tips to make 2015 the year of your new and improved credit score.

Don’t run up that balance If you went on a spending spree over the holidays, now is the time to take a sober look at your credit card accounts and get to work paying them down. Thirty percent of the popular and widely-used FICO credit scores are determined by an analysis of how much you owe on those accounts. Ideal is a so-called credit utilization of just ten percent, which means that your balance is ten percent or less of the total credit available to you.

Always be on time Even more important than maintaining a modest credit utilization is simply paying your bills on time. Fully 35 percent of a FICO score is determined by your history of making timely payments on your bills.

Get out the magnifying glass Nobody is perfect, including the companies that compile the credit reports that are used to calculate credit scores. Take advantage of your right to view a free copy of your credit report and take the many hours required to sift through it to find
mistakes that might be harming your score. If you do find mistakes – like accounts that aren’t yours or charges you never made – dispute those errors with the credit reporting companies.

Minimize applying for new standard/prime credit cards Another red flag for credit reporting companies is when people apply for more credit. If you already have pretty good credit and credit cards that you can use, avoid generating any unnessecary credit score dings by holding off applying for any new credit cards.

Now, if your score is currently very low, or if you are trying to build a fresh new score, the tips are a bit different.

Tips for Building Low / New Credit Scores

Apply for store and department store credit cards These are typically easier to get than standard credit cards and do not require as high a credit score for approval. They can offer perks and discounts at your favorite stores and they will report to the credit bureaus.

Apply for a secured credit card These cards are also easier to get, although there are typically fees associated with secured credit cards. But, they can help to establish or build up a low credit score. And when you start using these cards, always pay on time. We offer a list of some of the top secured cards on this site. If you are in the market for one, check them out.

Whether you are in the market for the best mortgage rate you can find or trying to rebuild your credit, knowing your credit score and what is on your credit report is a very healthy exercise that will help improve your overall financial fitness.

January 24, 2015
Helping A Spouse With Ways To Increase Their Credit Score
Anyone who has ever been married knows that a successful union requires plenty of accommodation and teamwork. While that’s an obvious message when it comes to raising children or keeping the house in order, it also extends to maintaining the good credit any couple will need in order to buy a new home or car. This often can mean finding ways to increase a spouse’s credit score. Marital teamwork is especially important if one spouse has a significantly lower credit score than the other. “While married couples don’t inherit each other’s credit score, one partner’s weak rating could sink the family’s financial goals,” writes Farnoosh Torabi in a new article for Money Magazine. Indeed, as the article makes clear, if husband or wife has a FICO score below the mid-700s, chances are the couple will be penalized with higher interest rates should they need to borrow money to purchase a car or a house.

Fortunately, Torabi lays out for couples ways to increase their credit score. They include:
- Paying bills on time: Because your credit score is largely based on whether you pay your credit card and other bills on time, one easy step to take is simply ensuring that happens. Nobody wants to be a nag, so Torabi suggests setting up automatic account alerts to notify your partner when a bill is coming due.
- Don’t be the life preserver: Although it might be tempting to dip into your own savings to erase your spouse’s debt, Torabi notes that doing so might be counterproductive. If your spouse’s debt is the result of poor decisions and reckless spending, giving them a clean slate won’t teach them anything and instead may encourage them to go back to their bad old ways. Instead, she says cutting back household expenses – especially your spouse’s spending – will help pay off the debt and teach valuable lessons.
- Work together: One tool for raising your spouse’s credit score is allowing him or her to become an authorized user on your credit card account. If you together pay your bills on time and in full, both you and your spouse will reap the rewards of a higher credit score.
- Don’t co-sign: While it may be a good idea to add your spouse as an authorized user to your credit card, avoid the temptation of co-signing for his or her new card. Doing that puts you on the hook for whatever debt your spouse incurs, a very bad thing in the event you ever split. Instead, Torabi says to consider encouraging your spouse to get a secured card. Secured cards require an upfront deposit that serves as the account’s credit limit, which means they are easy to obtain. If your spouse can make payments on time and in full he or she will soon see their credit score rise.
September 25, 2014
Smart Moves for Students: How to Build Credit as a College Student
If you step back and think about it for a moment, college seems like a downright lousy time to start building good credit. For all too many students, the college years are a time to amass a mountain of student debt while not working. Building the solid credit history that allows you to get home and car loans at reasonable interest rates is something to put off until after graduation, right? Not necessarily. In fact, in the not too distant past, credit card companies tried to entice every student within a Frisbee’s throw of a college green to signup for entry-level cards by offering perks like free airline flights. While that practice was a way for lots of undergrads to demonstrate they were ready for the adult responsibility of repaying their debts – and hence establishing good credit – it also resulted in too many young people drowning in credit card debt. It was an unpopular enough marketing tactic that the Credit CARD Act of 2010 largely eliminated those campus credit card promotions. But the fact remains that it is better to get started building your credit sooner rather than later. And there are still ways to begin constructing the sort of stellar credit that lenders want to see while still in college. If you are asking the question about how to build credit as a college student, here are a few tried and true methods:
- Obtain a secured card: Unlike standard credit cards, secured cards are easy to get because they require applicants to deposit money into their account before they spend a penny. That deposit amount becomes the card holder’s credit line, which makes it a risk-free proposition for the company offering the card – if you don’t pay your bill, they keep your deposit. But if you are smart and pay off all of your charges on-time it can be a great tool for burnishing your credit.
- Open a gas or department store account: Like secured cards, department store or gas cards are a snap to get compared to traditional credit cards. And if you use it wisely – meaning you always pay your bills before they’re due – you’ll be sending a message that you reliably pay off your debts.
- Get a credit card: True, the days of having multiple credit card offers stuffed in your campus mailbox are over. But if you have a part-time job and an existing relationship with a bank through a checking account and debit card, you just might be able to land a credit card. If you can swing it, do it. And this will sound like a broken record, but be sure to always pay your bill on-time and don’t get anywhere near your credit limit. Small, smart purchases that you pay off on a monthly basis will make a very good impression.
- Hit up your parents: If you’re in college, your parents have clearly already done a lot for you. But if you think they’d be open to one more request, try to get them to add you as an authorized user of their credit card account. You won’t have complete control over the card, obviously, but it is a tool for building credit. If, that is, you use it wisely.
September 2, 2014
Advice To Homebuyers: Boost Your Credit Score
It seems like such a simple equation. If you want the best mortgage interest rate, be sure that your credit score is as high as possible. And for once, this deceptively easy to understand formula actually is true. You really can get better interest rates if you can boost and keep your credit score as close to the maximum of 850 and steer it clear of the low end of 300.

According to a recent story by mortgage and credit expert, Dan Green, there are some easy ways to get that all important credit score up to where it will really do a potential homebuyer some good. “Anyone can raise their credit score to “Excellent.” This is because credit scores are based on a formula and parts of the formula are well documented and described,” writes Green on the website, The Mortgage Reports.

So what does Green suggest? First of all, it’s important to understand what scores actually matter. While there are many credit reporting companies in the market, he says that only three matter when it comes to mortgages: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Not only are those the only three credit reporting outfits that matter, Green says that anyone considering buying a home needs to realize that only specific reports issued by these companies are used by mortgage lenders. They are:
- The Equifax Beacon 5.0 report
- The Experian/Fair Isaac Risk Model v2 report
- The TransUnion Fico Risk Score 04
This is important to know because these are the reports mortgage lenders analyze when they’re considering your application for a home loan. “Your lender then takes the median of the three scores (i.e. the one in the middle), and calls it your credit score,” writes Green.

One benefit of applying for a mortgage is that a lender will supply you with a copy of your credit score for free. Green suggests you take advantage of this access to a free credit score and also pay heed to the notes that accompany them, which provide a road map to improving your score. Tips will include the obvious, like always paying your bills on time, and the less clear cut, such as keeping older credit cards open and using them from time to time.

Another bit of advice Green offers is to note how close you are to the credit limit on any of your cards. If you’re near the limit, that is a black mark against you in a lender’s eyes – the ideal is to have a balance of less than 30 percent of your credit limit. If you can’t pay down the limit, Green suggests asking the credit card issuer to up your card’s limit to get it below that 30 percent threshold. Paying close to attention to credit scoring details, insists Green, can up your score by 100 points in no time.
July 16, 2014