Ramesh Sharma, a senior software engineer at a mid-sized IT firm, applied for a personal loan worth ₹12 lakhs at XYZ Bank. Everything was scrutinized from his income and savings to his workplace. He emerged victorious on all these fronts except the credit score, which made the case weak and ultimately led to a rejection. Yes, he had a poor track record of credit card bill payment in the past.
On a number of occasions, he skipped the payment, which dragged down his credit score considerably. This made the concerned bank to reject his loan application. You better not fall into such a trap and ensure a good credit record. Meanwhile, it would be worthwhile to check your credit score before applying for a debt.
You can check your Experian Free Credit Score online. Experian ranks among the leading credit information companies providing credit scores and credit reports to individuals having a record of a loan or card repayment, be it in the past or the present. So are you ready to be detailed on the same? Then, join this interesting session that’s lined up for you.
How Can You Check Your Experian Free Credit Score Online?
It’s very easy as you just need to visit the official website of Experian and sign up by sharing a few personal and credit-related details. While personal details would be your name, date of birth, PAN Number, residence address, etc, credit information would include the loan or credit card account number, amount of loan or credit card debt owed so far, etc. The details so entered will get verified instantly and only when the verification is successful, you would be able to create a login choosing a User ID and password in accordance with the desired alphabet, numeric and character requirements. So, you just log on using the credentials to check your Experian credit score. You can view it free once a year. But checking the score multiple times in a year can cost you ₹500 and more.
What Should Be Your Experian Credit Score to Grab a Loan or Credit Card?
Let me tell you, Experian assigns credit scores in the range of 300-900 to individuals. While a score of 700 can almost make you eligible for the credit, a score past 750 would help fetch attractive loan and credit card deals. Below 700 can make it very difficult for the lenders to approve your application and you may have to wait till the time it touches the desired level.
Reasons for a Poor Credit Score & Remedies to Improve
A poor credit score can be attributable to the bad repayment habits that one may have. Let’s find out those reasons that can lead to the rejection of an application.
Late Payment or Default – So often the injudicious spending can drag you to a situation wherein paying the EMIs or dues on time becomes a tough task to accomplish. It then results in lowering the credit score and negating the possibility of any loan or credit card. To avoid such a situation, you need to take control of the spending and remove those from the list that can be done away with.
Too Many Credit Enquiries – One often falls into no man’s land by checking the credit scores frequently. It’s because checking it multiple times within a shorter period of time carves a credit-hungry impression of yours and which eventually pulls down your score rapidly. Don’t check the score so often and thus prevent it from going down further.
Multiple Applications at Shorter Intervals – Even as your ongoing personal loan is quite a long time away from being over, you could apply for a car loan and credit cards and that too without much of a gap between the two. This is also viewed as credit-hungry and expectedly lowers your score. So, avoid the temptation of making too many applications by letting the ongoing debt to be repaid in full before applying for a fresh credit.
Debt Settlement – Reaching an agreement with the lender to cut down the size of the debt is what many do to get relieved from the burden of massive repayment. It’s true, but then the credit score falls and creates an impression that you can’t handle the repayment responsibility properly. You should avoid settling the debt and instead bring a discipline that would leave you with substantial savings to pay the EMI or dues on time.