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What factors affect your credit score?

There are five factors which are used in credit scoring calculations that determine your overall credit score.

Previous Credit Performance (Payment History) 35% A lender wants to know what your payment history is like. Have you paid everything on time, are you late on anything now, and so on. Your payment history is just one piece of information used in calculating your score, although it can be the very important.

Current Level of Indebtedness (Amount Owed) 30% How much is too much? Can the borrower pay me and still afford to pay his other bills? Not necessarily. Having available credit can actually help your ratio of debt to available credit. These are the types of questions that most borrowers want to know and the answers are almost as important as your previous credit history.

Amount of Time Credit Has Been In Use (Length of Credit) 15% Generally speaking, the longer the credit history the better your score. However, this factor only makes up 15% of your total score so even young people, students or others with short histories can still score high overall as long as the other factors show good. If you are new to credit than there is little you can do to improve this part of your score. Open an account and be patient.

Pursuit of New Credit (10%) Credit is much more popular today. Just look at the number of credit card offers you get via the Internet and in the mail. Consumers can now shop for credit and find the best terms to meet their needs. Each time someone runs a credit check on you, it creates an inquiry.

Fair Isaac has changed some of its calculations to account for these new trends. Specifically, they treat a group of inquiries - which probably represents a search for the best rate on a single loan - as though it was a single inquiry (note: this only applies to auto or mortgage loan inquiries.) For example, auto loan inquires that are within 14 days of each other only count as one inquiry.

Types of Credit Experience (10%) A healthy mix of different types of credit, installment loans, retail accounts, credit cards, and mortgage. This score is not normally a key factor in determining your score but it can help a close score. Its not a good idea to try and open different types of accounts just to try and make this factor better. It will likely reduce your credit score in other areas. You should never open accounts you don't intend to use anyway.

What type of accounts you have, and how many, can make a big difference. The optimal ratio of installment versus revolving accounts depends on your profile and differs from person to person. One factor that seems to have significant influence is your percent of open installment loans. Too many can lower this portion of your credit score. For more information Click here.

Improving your credit score

Now that you know how your fico score is calculated, you can begin making changes to your current financial planning. The best things you can do are simple.