Can I improve my credit rating?
Yes, although you do not have just one universal credit rating. Every lender will set their own credit limits based on their own internal guidelines and criteria. But you can improve your rating with them by following a few basic principles. Firstly, it helps if you are not too nomadic in your lifestyle - moving your place of residence regularly, or not being traceable on the Electoral Roll may make some lenders more nervous. Lenders like stability. Make sure that all your current store and credit agreements are settled promptly and watch those monthly accounts - they are just the type of information that gets passed back to credit rating agencies. The same is true for mortgage payments, and gas, water, electricity, and telephone providers. Not all these will share their data, but some do. If you set up Direct Debits you are less likely to miss a payment accidentally because you are away on holiday or through an oversight.

See your credit rating report
We give consumers access to their own credit file and obtain a credit report on themselves. The service provided by My Credit Rating provides online access to your credit files and does not leave a search record which can be misinterpreted by other lenders.

This service lets you see your own credit rating and all the information on your credit file. We do not advise initiating a credit enquiry on yourself through a credit reporting agency, because doing this would inadvertently leave a record of the search on your own files. Every time a file is searched, the enquiry is recorded. The number and timing of enquiries can influence lenders - for example a cluster of credit searches around the time of the credit application they are currently reviewing, could suggest the applicant has been declined by other firms and is is shopping around for credit.