What is a Credit Score?

Whenever you approach a commercial lender for a loan, he performs a credit check on you. The loan you have applied for can be a home loan, business loan or loan for your dream vacation trip. It is your credit score that will decide whether your application will be accepted or not, if accepted what amount of interest you will be charged. Your credit score will also be checked even when you apply for an insurance cover, or you want to rent a house and even when you apply for a job.

What is a credit score? A credit score is a number that signifies your credit information. This score is used by all financial institutions or individual lenders to assess the risk involved in giving you credit.

The credit score is calculated on the base of the following.

? Address.
? Salary.
? Credit Dept.
? Bankruptcies.

Using the above factors, an algorithm is decided and using this algorithm a credit score is generated. People with low credit scores are referred to as high-risk borrowers, and people with high credit scores are referred to as low-risk borrowers. Banks and other lender set different interest rates for high and low-risk borrowers.

In general, a good credit score is somewhere in the range of 700-850, while an average rating would be around 550-700 and anything below 500 is considered as a poor credit score. Remember, it becomes difficult to borrow loan if you have a low credit score and if you do manage to get a loan, the interest rate charged will be quite high. So improve your credit score.