Just got my first credit score

[TomVexille]

Surely it's only negative if you miss payments??

Happy to be educated in this.

 

[FreddyFattler]

Surely it's only negative if you miss payments??

Happy to be educated in this.

Id say thats correct. More than 5 days late and actually reported by the card issuer, im not saying people here..as most here know paying interest subtracts from ff poiny value..but in general many people will get caught.

I know a few of my mates will have marks just about every month, only time will tell what the actual impact on the score/application approval process it will have.

 

[burmans]

Just got my score for this month. It has stayed exactly the same as last month?! Absolutely no changes to my file at all. I dont get it!!!

Well if there was no change in the inputs Im not sure what you would expect to change in the output.

The reason credit scores change is usually something has changed in the information held about you, the one thing that is outside of this rule is the "implied" information. By this I mean that in the first few months after a credit binge (which has caused your score to drop significantly) your score trends upwards. The implied bit here is that your recent application is becoming older, recent applications are more risk but an implication of this is that as the application ages you then become less risky again.

Once they get past the point of being "recent" the application stops being so important (though total # of applications is still used by some credit providers as a factor - but this wont have changed in your scenario, unless they are old and drop off).

 

[burmans]

Id say thats correct. More than 5 days late and actually reported by the card issuer, im not saying people here..as most here know paying interest subtracts from ff poiny value..but in general many people will get caught.

I know a few of my mates will have marks just about every month, only time will tell what the actual impact on the score/application approval process it will have.

Miss and/or are consistently behind in payments. But there are plenty of people in this category. I've seen some stats on the predictive capability of poor repayment history, yes its considerably more predictive than the current info and hence yes, this will indeed become a dominant factor in credit scoring.

 

[Captain Halliday]

I see on some of the card threads references to obtaining credit scores from Veda. I have discovered that getcreditscore.com.au will give you your score free and you can check up fo twice per month if you wish.

For your full report you'll still need to contact Veda, but if its's just the number you want, I'd go the free option. Certainly cheaper than the Veda subscription.

 

[AnnaB]

I see on some of the card threads references to obtaining credit scores from Veda. I have discovered that getcreditscore.com.au will give you your score free and you can check up fo twice per month if you wish.

For your full report you'll still need to contact Veda, but if its's just the number you want, I'd go the free option. Certainly cheaper than the Veda subscription.

Wow, is this site reliable when it comes to credit scores? If so, then I am going to apply for a new credit card

 

[cove]

I received a letter and a text to increase a credit limit. It is on a card where the capping of points kicks in shortly so if I were to spend to that proposed new limit I would be out of luck on thousands of FF points. My credit score in Australia has been lower than in the US but now they are getting closer seeing it is almost 7 months since I chased a new CC. In America I have virtually everything on auto pay and if not I get the bill emailed to me.

 

[blueythecat]

I see on some of the card threads references to obtaining credit scores from Veda. I have discovered that getcreditscore.com.au will give you your score free and you can check up fo twice per month if you wish.

For your full report you'll still need to contact Veda, but if its's just the number you want, I'd go the free option. Certainly cheaper than the Veda subscription.

Wow, is this site reliable when it comes to credit scores? If so, then I am going to apply for a new credit card

The site is reliable, in that it issues you with your Veda credit score. How that score impacts your credit worthiness as far as a particular provider is concerned is up to them. I would wager, no proof of course, that a large percentage of Australia's credit providers don't even use the score provided by the credit reporting agencies at all. Instead using the data that is on your credit file, combined with their own data on you (if they have any), the data you enter in any application forms and their own propitiatory algorithm to calculate a "score" for you.

Having said that, I think, again no proof, that with enough data points (of which credit score would be one) for any particular provider it would be possible to guesstimate if you would get approved for credit or not.

You can get your credit score for one of the other Australian credit reporting agencies, Experian, at the website creditsavvy.com.au. It is also free.

 

[Major]

I have a credit score of 887 but I am still unable to obtain further CC's because I have retired.

Whilst I have reasonable assets and no debt, I have no regular income which is what the CC providers look for.

It's a real PITA not being able to take advantage of sign on bonuses

 

[cove]

Most recent cards I have looked at wanted to see about $65,000 as income but that figure grows if you have large regular loan repayments. Often that will make retired folks ineligible so I suggest they get a Citibank Visa debit card for overseas travel.
Major 887 is a very good score.

 

[bam71]

Major 887 is a very good score.

Yea, but whats the use if he can't really use it ......

 

[woodyren]

I have a credit score of 887 but I am still unable to obtain further CC's because I have retired.

Whilst I have reasonable assets and no debt, I have no regular income which is what the CC providers look for.

It's a real PITA not being able to take advantage of sign on bonuses

I am approaching that stage of my life also. That is why I am trying to max all the sign up bonuses I can while I still meet the earn capacity.

I don't worry about my credit rating (Savvy says it is 563) as long as they give me cards because I will never want to get a home or personal loan.

In the mean time I am trying to figure out how to skirt around the income requirements in a few years time.

I will have enough money to travel a fair amount and would use my card almost as much as I do now once retired. I will also have the same ability to pay but the money will come from savings and pension rather than salary.

 

[cove]

The two of us have a bit over a million in credit card limits so I find it easy to pay those bigger bills like ATO, land tax, shire rates and all those living expenses. Both of our credit scores in Australia are rising.
Last month we repaid half our total bank debt and feel good about having done that. It wasn't necessary but it feels good and even better than an improved credit score.

 

[robtemt]

I find the whole credit score thing here in Australia to be insane. A score that is negatively impacted based on accessing credit.

Creditors should want to see a healthy history of borrowing and paying back, so having 10 applications in 3 years, with all being issued credit, paid on time or in full, and closed before or upon more being issued shows a responsible borrowing payment history. If banks worried about the fact you borrow money, they would be out of business.

That being said, we just refinanced an investment property, and took out a new home loan within a few months of each other. We also had applied for 6 credit cards between us for the bonus points, and the accounts were all open. The bank could care less. They wanted to see the statements to show they didn't carry a balance, and had no late fees. I think they asked for us to lower the limits on a couple, to minimise our total credit risk, but the score didn't' mean jack.

After all that in the past 12 months, my score still sits at 657, as of 2 months ago when all the dust settled on the refinancing, etc. Applying for credit limit increases I think hurts your score, even though it should be a maintenance type request from an existing creditor. Anyway, rant over. The credit reporting system really needs an overhaul.

 

[blueythecat]

I have a credit score of 887 but I am still unable to obtain further CC's because I have retired.

Whilst I have reasonable assets and no debt, I have no regular income which is what the CC providers look for.

It's a real PITA not being able to take advantage of sign on bonuses

It is a funny situation and I imagine it would be annoying. Guess it is one of the problems of unsecured debt, lenders find it hard to recover credit card debt if it goes bad, so they aren't keen to lend without those higher incomes, even if they have significant assets. This is of course more accentuated at the premium end of the credit card market - which is where the biggest bonus points are.

The retirement aged Australian's and older, are on the whole, asset rich - in a large part driven by the Australian housing boom that has lasted many decades - but now they are retiring have lower incomes than before (hence harder to get credit card sign-on bonuses). It's an individual financial decision of course, but one can always liquidate assets to buy income (ie annuities etc).

Of course the contrary to this, if you are younger and have a good income you can get a credit card sign-on bonus, but you have a house price to income ratio more than 4x that of 1975.

Life can be a strange thing and as I said to begin with, it can seem like a funny situation regarding obtaining credit cards.

Edit: I may have strayed a little too far OT here and it has only just occurred I might have caused a possible thread diversion with my post - not my intention. Merely trying to point it how it strange it may seem that those that are relatively financial sound, don't qualify for new credit cards, but those much poorer (ie less assets) do. Also, I'm certainly not suggesting any complaint from Major about their situation, but I think this is clear on a second reading of my post.

 

[Major]

No complaint from me but it is annoying seeing all those sign on bonuses passing by

 

[anat0l]

No complaint from me but it is annoying seeing all those sign on bonuses passing by

I have the opposite problem. Currently retraining / career switching, and have no full time job or significant assets.

That said, my damn score is 855! That took me by surprise (I was expecting it to be lower).

Of course, a good credit score doesn't mean you are a magnet to credit card approvals, irrespective of how good you look on paper.

 

[cove]

Well anat01 you are on your journey to a teaching career and you know I believe education can pay the highest dividend. I do hope you are going great. By the way that is a good credit score.

 

[DaveB]

The banking/ finance industry continues to amaze me how superficial it is.
Wife and I both have identical credit scores which I suppose is fair enough.
Surprised how easy the better half's recent credit card application was given her only source of income for years has been via family trust distributions. Did not care about real income source.

 

[samh004]

I have a credit score of 887 but I am still unable to obtain further CC's because I have retired.

Whilst I have reasonable assets and no debt, I have no regular income which is what the CC providers look for.

It's a real PITA not being able to take advantage of sign on bonuses

I know how you feel!