Your guide to credit scoring

You can request a copy of the information a credit reference agency holds on your file. You’ll need to give them your title, name, date of birth and address. You can find further details in a leaflet from the Information Commissioner's Office called Credit Explained.

The three main credit reference agencies (CRA)– Experian, Equifax and TransUnion – have different scales to measure credit scores. For example; 700 may be considered "poor" on one CRA but "excellent" with another. 

You can get a free, independent score from each credit reference agency which tells you the band you’re in.

There’s no universal minimum credit score needed to get things like a loan or mortgage as different providers have different lending criteria. But your credit rating must be considered good enough by your provider.

It can take some time to recover from a missed payment.

Try to make your repayments on time and recover accounts you’ve missed payments on. You could speak to your lender or a debt charity for support to help make your repayments. If you’re a NatWest customer and struggling financially, see what support we can offer you.

If you have a credit card or arranged overdraft, using all or most of your limit can suggest you’re financially stretched which could have a negative effect on your credit score. One way to avoid that is to avoid using all of your available limit.

If your credit limit is quite low, it can suggest to lenders that you're less comfortable with higher limits and aren’t able to make larger repayments on time.

When you apply to borrow money, the lender will search your credit report using either a soft or hard search. Hard searches occur when you make a full application for borrowing and soft searches are used when using eligibility checkers, for example.

Hard searches are saved on your credit report which means other lenders can see them and they can boost or lower your credit score. With soft searches, you’re the only one who can see them on your credit report, so they don’t affect your score.