Check your credit score for free | Finder UK (2024)

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Get free credit score

Use your credit score and Finder's 'chance of approval' rating to understand your likelihood of getting accepted for a credit product like a loan or credit card.

This can help you protect your credit score by avoiding applications for products you might not be eligible for.

Using our free credit score product can help:

Grow your score

Get smart, personalised insights about your financial wellness plus expert guides on how to improve it.

Check your report

Answer a few quick questions, and get completely free credit reports for life.

Protect your finances

With Finder, you're in safe hands. We'll keep an eye on your credit file and notify you of any suspicious activity.

Your credit score is a number that represents how creditworthy you are - it demonstrates your reputation as a borrower and is calculated based on your financial activity and credit history.

Credit scores are produced by specialist credit reference agencies (CRA), and each agency uses its own scoring method to determine your credit score. Though, across all CRAs, the higher the score, the more creditworthy you appear.

The higher, the better when it comes to credit scores and, based on the scoring system you'll receive through Finder, above 670 is a very good score and above 810 is considered excellent.

What financial products may require a good credit score?

Get free credit score

Whenever you apply for credit, a potential lender will look at your history of borrowing and repaying to determine how much of a risk you are – in other words, how likely they are to get their money back. The better your credit history, the easier you will find it to obtain credit and the better the rates available to you.

Your credit history is stored by credit reference agencies. The biggest ones in the UK are Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

Whenever you make an application for credit (e.g. a mortgage, credit card or personal loan), the lender will turn to these agencies to look at your score and history, which will play a major role in the success or failure of your application.

By looking at your credit report in conjunction with its own assessment of your circ*mstances, the lender will decide on whether to lend to you, how much to lend to you and how much interest to charge you.

Your credit report or history is a detailed record of your borrowing history, with information such as the loans you have held and applied for. It also includes personal information such as your name and address.

Your credit score is a number that is calculated using the information on your credit report. Your score determines your credit rating which could be "very poor", "poor", "fair", "good" or "excellent".

When deciding whether to take you on as a customer, lenders will usually look at your more recent financial history to determine their decision. However, your financial decisions, both good and bad, will remain on record for up to six years.

There is no single, definitive credit score for an individual. Each credit reference agency (CRA) uses a different scale. Lenders will normally check with one or more of these agencies when assessing your application for credit. These are the scoring ranges employed by the main UK CRAs (the higher the number, the better the score).

Experian: 0 - 999

Equifax: 0 - 1,000 (formerly 0 - 700)

TransUnion (formerly Callcredit): 0 - 710

Depending on your score, you're said to have excellent, good, fair, poor or very poor credit:

• Seeing your credit score and report will give you a good grasp of your financial position and help you feel more confident when you're making decisions about your money. Finder Credit Score is free, and our expert team have created guides tailored to different scores to explain what's what and why. We also have a customer service team on hand to answer questions.

• Yes, Finder's Credit Score & Report is free, with no catch. Finder is on a mission to help Brits make better financial decisions. We believe everyone should get access to their credit score and report for free, to help them understand what it means, how to build their score and how to access the best possible rates when borrowing. When you sign up, you'll become a Finder member, which means you'll also be able to access exclusive content and special deals.

• You view both through your dedicated dashboard. The score and report are supplied by Equifax, one of the UK's leading credit reference agencies. You can log in to your Finder account and check your dashboard at any time. Your credit score history is updated every month - and we'll contact you each month to let you know what's changed, if anything.

• Once you're signed up to Finder's free Credit Score & Report, you can look at your report as many times as you want. We'll also send you monthly updates with useful tips to improve your score.

• No. Checking your score won't affect it. Many companies who provide credit score checks, including Finder, run a "soft" search to check your credit score; this does not impact your score. However, when applying for a credit card or loan, a lender will perform a "hard" check' on your credit report, this will initially cause a dip in your credit score.

• There are a number of reasons why your credit score has been affected and since gone down in rating. You may have:

  • Missed or made a late payment
  • Taken out a new line of credit
  • Increased your credit spending
  • Settling a financial disagreement in court
  • Moving addresses too regularly

  Learn more about what affects your credit score.

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