The three main credit reference agencies in the UK are Experian, Equifax and TransUnion (formerly Callcredit). These are the ones most lenders rely on when considering someone for a mortgage. You can check your credit rating with all three agencies for yourself.
Many stores and credit card providers also run credit checks with Equifax. These include Barclaycard, American Express, Capital One, Santander and Tesco Bank. If you are taking out a new phone or utility contract with BT, EE, Carphone Warehouse, O2, Vodafone or Virgin then your Equifax file may be checked.
Your Experian credit file is also likely to be checked if you apply for a mortgage or finance for a new vehicle. A vast array of UK credit providers uses Experian, either alone or alongside Callcredit or Equifax.
Which credit score do lenders actually use? Most lenders use the FICO credit score when assessing your creditworthiness for a loan. According to FICO, 90% of the top lenders use FICO credit scores.
This is because not all financial institutions report all the same information to credit reporting bureaus, although this is a rare case. However, most smaller lenders typically use Equifax.
As it's the largest of the credit reporting organisations, most Australian banks use Equifax credit scores in their assessments of credit worthiness. However, they can also use information from the other credit reporting organisations, as well as their own internal risk assessment measures.
Our service retrieves your credit report information from Experian through Credit Savvy every month on your behalf. Unfortunately, it can take time for account changes (including closures and corrections) to be reflected on your NetBank or CommBank app dashboard.
Some of the major credit card companies that use Equifax include American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi, Discover, and Wells Fargo. These companies use Equifax to verify your identity, check your credit history, and evaluate your credit score.
ClearScore takes your credit report and financial information from Experian and illion, then uses that very information to generate its own score. While the credit scores can vary slightly depending on the credit reporting agency, the same rule follows for all scores – The higher the better.
Updating times. In addition to data differences, credit bureaus update their information at different intervals. For example, TransUnion may update its information every 30 days, whereas Experian may update information every 60 days. That time difference can lead to different scores.
Experian scores your credit out of 999 (with anything over 880 being 'good'), whereas Equifax scores your credit out of 700 (with anything higher than 420 being 'good').
The Experian Credit Score is the UK's most trusted rating* – a good Experian Credit Score is likely to mean you have a good credit score with companies. It's based on information in your Experian Credit Report, and runs from 0-999. The higher it is, the better your chances of getting credit at the best rates.
At Equifax, your score is on a scale of 0 to 1200, whereas Experian calculates it on a scale of 0 to 1000. Of course, the algorithms they use for calculating the score are also different. As a result, you may notice a difference in your score across these bureaus.
Equifax Ltd is one of the Equifax group companies based in the UK. Equifax Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
HSBC will usually pull your Equifax credit report. See real-time data in our Credit Card Database.
Try your Equifax Credit Report & Score for FREE*
*Your first 30 days are free then it's £10.95 per month. You can cancel at any time.
Put simply, Experian will be the more accurate of the two, as it is Experian that lenders use to check your credit score when evaluating a credit application. But Clearscore provides a more intuitive dashboard for tracking trends in your credit score and finding out what factors are impacting your score.
However, you can increase your chances of acceptance with a credit card for bad credit, and when managed responsibly, it could help you build your credit score. The average UK credit score is 797 out of 999 (according to Experian), however scores can vary depending on the credit reference agency.
As the agencies reviewing your credit score rate their scores differently to each other, they also have their own understanding of what a good credit score looks like. ClearScore clearly advertise on their app that the average UK ClearScore credit score is 585, which puts most people in the 'good' bracket.
This is because individual consumer reporting agencies, credit scoring companies, lenders and creditors may use slightly different formulas to calculate your credit scores. They might also weigh your information differently depending on the type of credit account for which you've applied.
ClearScore gets your credit score and report from Equifax. Depending on the date of your report, there could be slight differences in the score we have and the one Equifax has.
ANZ provides information to and uses information from three different credit reporting bodies - Equifax, illion and Experian.
We work responsibly with a carefully selected range of charities who offer their services both in Australia and overseas.
The Equifax 2022 Credit scorecard - combining survey data of 1,016 respondents with credit score information for more than two million individuals - found many Australians are establishing more disciplined spending habits. Average Australian's credit score is 846 according to Equifax.