In several avenues of life, fulfilling targets like owning a house or buying a car becomes hard without outside financial help. Taking out a loan is common – but the process is not like buying something from the supermarket. The creditor institution has the right to judge your worthiness to receive a loan (based on your credit score) and to ensure that their money is in safe hands. This is why everyone wants to know how to increase their credit score?
The concept of credit score, or credit rating in Australia – came into being to evaluate a prospective client’s capacity to pay the loan back. The creditor institution – bank, lending houses, or other financial institutions seeks this credit score when considering an application for a loan.
A credit score or credit rating is a number assigned by a creditor organization or credit bureau when you apply for a loan to them. Depending on the creditor organization – you will get a score between 0 and 1000, or 0 and 1200. A good credit rating also helps in other associated factors – for example, the credit limit for you, the interest rate you have to pay, the loan period, and other applicable factors.
As a general rule, a higher credit rating transforms to better chances of your loan application being accepted. So, if you wish to know how to increase your credit scores in Australia, you have to read this article thoroughly.
According to recent statistics, the number of loan takers in Australia was 8 million in 2019. So, to make sure that your application remains on the successful list, you have to fulfil the conditions to achieve a good credit score.
Usually, the creditor house uses an algorithm to determine the credit limit of an applicant. This algorithm takes many things into account – like your credit history, past dealings, credit accounts to determine your credit score. The common protocol and factors that affect the credit limit are given in the table below:
| Factors | Assessment points | Explanation |
| Credit history | Presence of high-risk indicators | Bankruptcies, court judgments, defaults, and credit infringements will negatively impact your credit score. |
| Type of credit providers | The type of loan provider will matter; a bank loan will be regarded differently than a payday loan application. | |
| Repayment history | Steady, on-time settlements can subsidize clearly to your credit score. | |
| Credit profile | Credit history period | Shorter and longer credit histories will have different risk representations. |
| Personal facts | Information like your age, number of months staying at the current address, and duration of employment will affect credit rating. | |
| Credit applications | Past amount and type of credit | Type of past credit and amount will determine the risk assessment. |
| Number of credit enquiries | Fewer and sporadic credit inquiries will be preferred. | |
| Distribution of credit enquiries | Recent inquiries will have different judgments than older queries. |
Reserve bank of Australia state that 12% of personal loan are unplanned. So, it is essential to get your credit limit sorted out. When you need a loan for a really important cause, it doesn’t become an issue for the purpose.
The credit score of your financial profile will depend on your specific monetary situation. So, the stages of your credit score improvement will also be particular to your situation. However, there are some general answers if you want to know how to increase credit score in Australia, given below:
To get recognition as a borrower, you need to build up your credit file. The first step to achieve this is to open and actively use several credit accounts in your name. Opening these credit accounts will be reported to all the major credit bureaus and will count as an important step towards building your credit file.
You can use credit-builder loans and secured cards if you have a low score or starting, or any good rewards credit card with no annual fee if you are trying to better a proven credit score. You can also add yourself to someone else’s credit card as an authorized user – provided the cardholder(s) use their cards sensibly. Otherwise, your credit score may suffer.
You can also use the boost program of credit cards to add positive points by paying for the cell phone, utilities, and streaming service. However, these on-time payments will not improve your overall credit report but will be considered positively in the credit report of that particular credit card company.
Your compensation account is one of the most significant aspects of defining your credit scores. Having an extensive history of payments on time can aid you in accomplishing outstanding credit scores. You’ll have to make sure that you don’t fail on debt repayment or credit card reimbursements by a maximum time of 29 days —because credit institutions will report payments later than 30 days to the credit bureaus –which can damage your credit scores.
You can also pay the minimum amount to avoid missing a payment through the bank – provided your bank account doesn’t get squeezed too much or run into overdraft. If you have trouble repaying a bill, contact your credit card issuer without failing to discuss adversity options.
Read More: How To Get A Home Loan With Bad Credit in Australia?
Bringing your debt accounts into a current stature will help with your credit scores. Not only will it better your credit score but also stop other late reimbursements from being added to your credit history, as well as extra late fees. Your credit report may keep the record of late payment for up to seven years – but the current state of accounts should be up-to-date with its payments.
If you face trouble with credit card loans, you can talk with a credit counsellor and avail a debt management plan. The counsellor can successfully get lower interest and payment dates and get card issuers to bring your accounts updated.
Although opening new accounts is necessary for credit file building, you must check the application submission interval. A hard inquiry for each application will cumulatively affect your credit scores negatively. Opening a new account also decreases the accounts’ average age, damaging your credit score.
However, if you ask for quotations for certain types of loans – like an auto role or mortgage – credit scoring models may ignore inquiries within a couple of weeks.
You may get money from other sources if your credit scores don’t allow you to borrow from legal or professional financial houses. But also remember that their conditions are steeper than the safer options. So, how to increase credit score in Australia? The conclusive answer is to keep your credit record clean and all your dealings above-board.
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