A credit score is a numerical representation of your ‘creditworthiness’ given to you by credit reference agencies and is worked out from a range of information. You can read more about credit scores in our guide What Is My Credit Score?.
Your credit score is a representation of your creditworthiness. Lenders use this along with your other personal information to assess how much money they’d lend to you. Lender’s need to know that you’ll be able to afford the monthly repayments on any amount they decide to lend to you.
Most lenders *do not* carry out a hard credit check on customers submitting an application on Choose Wisely. As new lenders enter and leave our tables the situation may arise where a lender(s) we work with requires a hard credit check as part of our application process. If this happens we will always make this clear to our customers before applying. We will never leave a mark against your credit without prior consent.
If you continue to a lender’s website from choosewisely.co.uk to complete an application then the lender will normally carry out a hard credit check at that point. This is completely down the lender’s discretion and they should make this clear at the point of application.
There are a number of free credit referencing websites which you can use to check your credit score such as ClearScore Using a credit referencing service will not negatively impact your credit score. Using a credit referencing agency will show you your credit report, but it will show as a soft search which can’t impact your score.
There are a few simple things you can do to improve your credit score like signing up to the electoral roll. For further tips on how to improve your credit score you can read our handy guide on How to improve your credit score