Candidate Know-How: Improve the Credit Score
As mentioned in the previous articles, the credit score is a dynamic number which changes every day. The implication for candidate is that there are ways to continuously improve the credit score. After attending workshops, sharing and reading the information provided by the major credit bureaus, below are a few key summarized tips for candidates to improve their credit score:
- The goal is to build up a good credit history and track record. Thus, always settle your payment on time.
- Do not just forget and let an overdue payment sits there. Although the amount can be small, it could be very harmful to your credit score as overdue outstanding payment would often be counted as “overdue account” in many countries’ credit reports.
- Do note that if you submit multiple loan/credit card applications which create credit inquiries for the credit bureau, it may harm your credit rating at that time.
- Review your credit report periodically to avoid any potential errors in the report. As the credit report simply contains information submitted from the bank or their information source, it could potentially contain information that do not belong to you or data that should be updated from the bank. Many countries such as United States provide their citizens one copy of their credit report at no charge every year, so this is definitely a good practice to obtain the report.
- Finally, spend the time to review and understand the information in the credit report. This gives you a better understanding of your current credit status and you can start planning on improving it today!
For more information about credit score or credit report, do read over other articles we have published or join our upcoming events.
