The Credit Score Webinar
Summary
Welcome to the first in our series of webinars - "Mystifying Financial Principles For Healthcare Professionals." Here, qualified Chartered Accountant James, and Financial Medic Sira, will discuss how responsible credit and financial behavior can impact your credit score, both positively and negatively. Discover how it is calculated, what implications having a poor credit score can have, and how to maintain a good score to ensure access to financial products such as mortgages and bank loans. interactive nature of the session as well as its free resources, informative articles, and certificates of attendance make this a must attend event for medical professionals!
Learning objectives
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the importance of credit scores in relation to loan applications.
- Be able to explain what makes up a credit score and how it is calculated.
- Identify factors that can influence credit scores and learn how to improve credit scores.
- Explain the consequences of missing payments on credit scores.
- Understand how address stability, credit card usage and accuracy of credit reports can impact credit scores.
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Computer generated transcript
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The following transcript was generated automatically from the content and has not been checked or corrected manually.
Okay, so I think we'll get started. So I'll possible to James and Sira to do the introductions. Thank you, John. Me. Thank you. Could even everyone welcome to first in our Siris off Webinar City. Mystifying financial principles for healthcare professionals. My name's James. I'm gonna be an f Y one in the accident, but I'm insisting side or this evening, the finance Medic. I'm gonna be posting links and questions in the group tapped throughout the session. So keep an eye out on the chat on. We'd love session to be interactive on. So try to be active or a point of things and chat on more than happy to take questions as we go. So either kind of post in the channel, you can use the race hand function. Um, I'm basically just here to draw his attention to it. All of the seven hours that we're gonna do, we're gonna be recorded on available to you after the seminars finished. There's also gonna be a summary articles for each talk going live on the mindedly website after the session finishes. Um, and as you probably already aware, all of the sessions, articles, resources, they're totally free all the way out for a return. It's a quality feedback on. So ideally, not just that was good or I didn't like this. And that kind of think like throughout comments that we can actually use to improve the constant your on go anymore selfishly so that we can kind of reflect about it, talk about it in interviews and uses evidence for our court. So those applications in the future and I will pop links for the feedback in the chapter was the end of the session to just take five minutes on dollies, fill out on you will receive a certificate of attendance by middle once you submitted the feedback. Um, which you might find useful is evidence of working towards leadership in management skills, which from a large part of your applications in the future. So now it's my pleasure to introduce. That's our Asher Sorry is doing an AFP in the accident. She's a qualified chartered accountant and has experienced at the National Order Office as well as in the private sector. She is the brains behind the whole of a serious, and she's really came to share her knowledge and experience with your so over to you. So, James, that's really kind. Some to jump straight in s. So today we're going to talk about credit schools. Um, what we're going to talk about is why is this credit score important? And what makes up the credit school specifically? What is it? How is it calculated? Can you influence factors that might change your credit score for the better on how we can actually do that? First of all, we can drop. This is me. Um, I'm enough. I wanted the oxygen right on. I'm super excited to be giving you my first session. So why is this credit score important? So it's a three digit number that lenders use as an almost pass fail to decide whether they're going to lend you money or not. Your credit score is used from everything, such as when you're applying for car finance or an overdraft to things like your phone contract so you can actually be turned down from one contract. If your credit score isn't high enough, it helped. It's quite it takes quite a long time for you to grow a good credit school. It takes very little to then bring it down So if you have a good credit school and you're doing really well, you have to keep doing what you're doing and have to be very careful not to make any silly mistakes, because you can actually, really significantly affect your quit school with something a small as missing a bill payment on on. If that happens, it will take a long time to then rebuild your partner credit school. Unless Lee, the better your current school, the better interest rates you get on when you borrow money, lenders will use ah higher interest rate for people they think are higher risk of not paying them back because it means that every payment they do receive at least they recruit a little bit of those losses. Whereas if you've got a really good credit school and you give the lenders on idea that you're more likely to repay them on time on fully, they're going to give you a better interest rate because it's better for them to keep you on your loyalty than it is to them to try and make extra money out to be. So why does this matter? Let's talk about Dr Chase. Yeah, so Doctor traces went, It's only once a day on property ladder. He's built up enough of a deposit on. He's applied for a mortgage. Um, now, Doctor Chase didn't check his credit school. It was 405 146 out of 999. Um, he's missed two payments on his mobile phone contract three years ago. Um, on this was because there was a mistake when it was being switched from one contract provided to another. Um, they didn't do it on time. It was an error on their part. And that resulted in two payments being late. Um, he has a credit card, which he uses to the max every month, but he does pay that off of the end of everyone betweens. He's not carrying over that debt. Month after month, he's registered on the electoral register where he lives. Um, Dr Chases ready to get on that, um, property ladder. Unfortunately, with all of this, his, uh, placation outcome was rejected. So I'm going to talk about why it was rejected. What, in his background. What in this information is actually going against him on going for him? So the fact that his credit score. Isn't that great? I'll explain a bit more about what a good credit score is, but his credit school is not that great. It would probably be about the fair or good mark. Um, most lenders will have a credit school cut off between the good and excellent mark. Again, I'll explain what that means. Um, he's missed two payments. That is a big, big problem. Your credit school or your credit report is based on six years worth of data. Which means even four years ago, five years ago, you missed one mobile phone contract payment that is gonna hit your credit school. Now, the good thing was, he wasn't at fault. It wasn't him who missed that payment. It was because of a genuine error that was made of the time. What he can do is contact his contract provider, ask them to rectify his credit report on, but it is a bit of a soft. You'd have to go into lots of phone calls, right? Lots of letters. But it is possible for him to go back on, have his contract provider say it wasn't his fault. It was because there was an ad Manero at the time, and that might help him improve. His credit School is credit Score is probably currently affected with the fact he's got two payments on it. Next, he's got a credit card. That's a good thing. He pays off every month. That's a good thing. The problem is he uses up all of the violence on his credit card on If your lender and you can see that someone is using that credit card to the full every month, it might suggest that they're living paycheck to paycheck. That they might not be covering. Their cash flow is well as they could. The best way to use a credit card to build a credit school is to use around half the balance or less on pay it off every month. That way, you're showing that you don't need to use a little credit that you've got that you are actually fairly comfortable. But you're using the credit card for big purchases or for a day to day purchases which you can easily afford. Regardless on that build a really good credit score, and lastly he's on the electoral register where he lives. That is a very good thing address. Stability can really increase your credit to school, because if you're stable in terms of address, it means that you could be track down. It means that you're reliable on that. You're more likely to be making regular payments either of it's rent or a mortgage. All of those things they make. You sound like a more reliable person to lend money, too. So always remember, if you move, make sure that you change your address with your bank on your driving license and any other memberships that you have on an annual Focalin trucks and make sure that you have signed up to the electoral register where you are. Every time you move your credit score, we'll take a hit. But it will be fine as long as you stay in that place for a couple of years and then you're quite a school build back up. It's just one of those things we have to accept. Unfortunately, it's not something we can prevent. So if you'll like me, I moved for you need pretty much every year because I was moving to how shares and, um, I ended up having quite a hit on my credit score because I was I appeared unreliably addressed. Um, so my credit score took the last three years to recover. As a result of that moving around, it wasn't anything to do with the ability for me to pay. Unfortunately, we just have to take that one or two days. So this is what a good credit score looks like. This is experience credits, school matrix. There are different ones. There's three different ones. So this shows that out of 999 the last sort of 752 999 is good on. Excellent. And then you've got your poor for a very poor, um on. So doctor Chase would have been in the late, fair, fairly good area. The higher your school, the better you are. Um, on. That's what we're trying to aim for. That's what we're gonna do. We're gonna come up with ways to improve all credit school. So things to consider. Now that you know that information, you have to check the accuracy of your credit report. You have to make sure that any information they have on there is absolutely correct, both in terms of If you think there should be something something they're missing, which might affect your credit score negatively. You still have to make sure it's on that, because if that's found out later, then you could be seen as someone who's covered up. Information on that can really affect your credit score poorly if you're found out. So say you've got a credit card that hasn't appeared on that may have had a couple of Ms payments. It would actually be better being honest and saying, You've missed this credit card off then to actually just let it Lilo because there's three different credit agencies that use your information. It will pop up. It will come up on D that's going to affect you negatively. If you've used a credit school that isn't accurate, to apply for something and been successful because of it, the next thing is the time that's passed. You need to make sure that when there is incorrect information on there, you deal with it as quickly as possible. The further away you get from it, the harder it is to correct. Imagine Doctor Chase having to ring up someone from three years ago. Find out the exact month that he missed the payment and tell them, Please, can you correct it? It's not going to be fun. Um, so make sure that the time past is a little possible on day to make sure that your quote it school hasn't been affected for that long because that can count as well. And look at the current usage as well. So, um, when I say current usage, I mean off all your accounts, not just your credit card. It comes. So if you've got two or three current accounts and you're not using one of thumb, get rid of it. Um, if it looks like you have notes of unused accounts, unused credit cards, it suggests that you don't actually need that much credit. They might want a while you're applying on. Conversely, it might also means that you have all this extra stuff. Is it likely that you'll be able to afford to pay them back if you've already got these products and you're not using them? So these are the kind of questions that raises, so make sure that your current usage as as accurate and is close to what you actually use a needle possible. Those are the three things I would consider. So how is awkward school calculated? Um, different lenders have different ways off waiting in the credit school. So there's three different credit agencies. The first one is experience. Second one is Equifax. On the third one is Trans Union. They're the three main ones that lenders use. Um, you want to make sure that you've checked it with a least one of them? Ideally, two of them experience Equifax, let you sign up for free on do a 30 day free trial. You can get a copy of your report printed off and then just cancel your subscription. That way you get a good idea of what information is being held about you and being used, but they will have a different way of calculating things, and they will have a slightly different scale. But the three things that comes down to is old debt. How old is your debt? If you have really all that on your file, it suggests that you're struggling to pay it off, that you might not be able to afford to pay off any new debt again. If there's two new debt, then you've probably already already exceeded your affordability because they'd only give you what you could afford on. It might not be. You might not be able to pay it back. That's that's their thinking. So your old debt can't be too old. Your new debt can't be too new. I know it sounds really weird. It's sort of making sure that you time your applications in such a way that you're not falling foul of either of these things on then your payment history again. I can come back to this. It's the last six years on. It has to be faultless. You can't have a Mr Payment on there and not have Ah, big hit your credit school. So I would be very careful. Have a look. The main things that are going to be counted as Mr Payments are going to be things like your phone contract, gym memberships, um, car leasing. Um, any sort of like credits next door credit things like that, but they will appear on your credit report. So as long as you go and have a note, you'll actually be able to see what's been counted against. If there are any missed pains that Okay, so these are are influencing factors negative and positive then affect our school Already gone over the number and utilization and the age of your accounts. You don't have too many accounts. You don't wanna maximize your credit cards because it suggests that you're not able to pay them all straight away. And you don't want to apply when you only just mark on button credit or loans elsewhere. So if we talk about it go a dumbbell. Say I go Great. Uh, it was phones on. I used it, too. That's, uh, holiday. I'm still going to need another part of card for my day today shopping, but it already sounds pretty dodgy. You wait maybe four months to six months that your credit call it is not, uh uh. They had a chance to see it in the cards to see the still able to afford to pay off more credit on. Then you apply because too many applications, one after another were also cumulatively hit your credit school. Especially if they're rejected. Mister. Late payments, heavily weighted. We just talked about this so it suggests you may not be able to reliably pay on time. Heavily hits your credit school might give you more likely or being rejected in your applications rather than being offered of worse interest rate. People tend to be quite risk of us in this area on then again, the address. The longer you spend it. One address, the more reliable you appear, the better your current school. Make sure that what? Your address is updated across the board on you're on the electoral register. That's a big deal on now. Improving your current school. So we talked about all the different things you can do. I'm just summarizing here. Now we sign up to the electoral register. We make sure we don't have too many accounts. We pay on time on. We don't use all of our credit, but once we use about half to less than half of it every month, Yeah, so you're gonna want to know. Okay. You told me all this stuff. How do I find out what my score is? Um, there's a factually, really 100 things that you can use. So, um so, actually, just find out your school. Um, I would suggest downloading these ups, so money, supermarket, clear school and experience all provide a free up that can just tell you your score. Your three digit number, um, clear school actually gives you a free credit report. So if you were going to do any of those first, I will do clear school. The next thing is to actually get a full report. Now, clear school isn't one of the three of fish reporting agencies that lenders use, which is why getting that report is not going to be enough if there are any issues on, if you really need this application to be approved. So, for example, if you're applying for a mortgage, you don't want to just use the clear score report because that's not what the lenders will be using. You want to get at least a copy of your report from experience on Equifax because they provide them for free. Trans Union is a paid service, so experience Equifax. You sign up, you get your 30 day free trial, you print off your report. All of these are technically paid services, but if you cancel your subscription, they're not on. They will give you tips and tricks on how to improve this or if it's not great. The best thing about this is the that. It gives you the exact information your lenders going to use. You can be fairly confident whether your application is going to be approved or not. And then lastly, use for people's is if you have any more questions. If you're bit confused. Um, saving expert is really, really good and just providing practical examples. It also helps you find. So if you look up credit cards for someone with a full credit history or how to build my credit history, it gives you a very good step by step way of how to do that. Medics Money is a website run by two doctors to GP is. One of them is an accountant as well. On they provide access few pants of those accountants and mortgages, mortgage advisers who specialize in money for medics who specialize in investments in mortgages. All of that for doctors. They understand the market. They understand the different products that are offered to any just people. So, for example, I will be doing seminar on mortgages, but I don't know how it how many of you know that, um, mortgages. Yeah, they're actually special rates for doctors that you can access on the market. You have to go through a specialist mortgage advisor who has access to those products to be able to get one on, then, lastly, shameless drug from me. I will be putting an article up after this on before every weapon I make. I will also be putting up in article, um, on summarizing what I've gone through. So the article and the webinar hand in hand should provide you with quite a good idea of each of the topics I'm going over. So, um, in summary, make sure your reports accurate. Make sure you're good on data to date material addresses a rupture day on all your memberships, your driving license and your bank accounts. Check your mobile phone contracts that you haven't missed any payments. I am banging on about my well phone call frax. Because I know about some famous footballer who had his mortgage denied because he missed one payment five years ago on his boat. Well, from contract. That might be an urban legend, but it's always stuffed my head. Um, get a copy of your credit report as well. You can do it from those three places. I recommend it on just be proactive. Just make sure that you're on top of your credit report. Just have a look. Once a month, you'll get a new school or updated school with the information that's been going on over the last month. Just have a quick look at it. Make sure you're happy with it. If there are any issues or things are different that you weren't expecting, jump on it straight away. Don't leave too much time between identifying a problem and doing something about it. James, Do we have any questions or anything from our origins? No, Actually, due to some, uh, issues with the access to the Facebook account, I can't actually view the questions, but I don't think being any okay, that's fine. So if you guys have any questions, just drop them in the chart or in the comments, because one of us will be able to pick them up. Um, I'm sorry if we missed thumb on, I will make sure that I answered them on the article. So do you go and have a look at the article? Um, it's just a question, because I will be able to answer on that, Um, so I just want to thank you all for your attention on back to James. He's just gonna tell you about a few things. Okay. Thank you for much type. That was very informative. Was always and yeah, I definitely, uh, reiterate what you said about medics money. There's some really interesting stuff. That's this. A limited for doctors and kind of finally your medical students, But yeah, I would never would have found out without, um So your apologies, if you have any questions on the Facebook group due to some access, not been able to get on there and have a look at them, but we'll make sure we address them and sort out the next week. Um, so I believe that should be posted on the video. Ah, link for next week seminar, which is about current events. Uh, we'll also be a link for feedback, which is appearing here in the video. That should also be down in the comments on a link to the article which could live, Believe, nine o'clock. I just wanted to reiterate Yeah, please give us a feedback. Have a little thing about what you like. What you didn't like. We can improve on like a set, giving us something that we can do something with this really, really useful. So thank you very much. He? Yes, questions. It'll just stick them in the chart. Okay, great. Thanks. Ira and Jane. That was really informative. I put the feedback link and everything on the comments. A We do have a question, actually, is higher if you're okay to answer it. Yep. What factors have made this supporter school? What factors in the case of improved his credit school? I know. No, that that's James. There's a question for Cilman are in the chat saying, apart from a credit card, phone contract, gym membership, what else can we used to improve our score? So credit card is the best form to use a mobile phone contracts. Everyone has the gym membership. Everyone has. Unfortunately, you won't be able to access the kinds of products that you might be able to use at the moment. So say you're a student or ah, very young doctor. Things like investments. You'd wanna you could You could use those, but I don't know if those are the kinds of products you can access. So the best thing to do really is to get a very low balance credit card, something like 500 lbs, spend 30 lbs on it a month on your grocery shopping and then paid off straightaway. Your credit will build so quickly just doing it that way. There's a lot of student credit cards that do that. So I understand that West does a 500 lb student chronic caused on. But, um, you can use that to build your credit really, really quickly. Okay, great. Thanks. Are got another question from Mohammed saying, Does checking your credit score affected anyway? Not at all. So checking your credit score is not going to hit your head. So it's only when other companies are checking your credit score in order to give you a product. So it's called a soft search when you're looking at your credit school. Also, when you're doing things like going on confused dot com or money supermarket dot com. On looking for products like our insurance or home insurance, they'll have a quick look at your credit score, but against that's a soft search. That's not a hard search. Ah, hard search that ends up on your record and then up hurting your credit score if you don't get accepted. These things, like when you're actually applying for a loan, a mortgage or credit card where you're actually going to get credit as a result. Okay, Perfect. Thanks, Ira s. So I don't think we've got any other questions at the moment. But if you guys, do you think of anything than feel free to either comment on Cyrus Post on the website or you can email the generic in for it. Mind the sleep dot com mean mail address, and we'll make sure that sira gets and reply. Otherwise, you can just post comments will continuously check with or sorry, we do have one more question, but I mean, he her say sorry if you've already mentioned this before. But for someone with no credit history, what credit score when they expect with the first time that they check it. Um, I really don't know because actually, James and I checked our credit scores together, and James have never checked his credit score before. He's never had a credit card, and he had 999 because he had never changed his address. So you'd be surprised how good your current school might be if you've never had any credit whatsoever. But your address has been the same all these years and you've had a phone contract because people don't realize they're phone contract actually counts on that credit report. If you've had a phone contract and you've never change your address, you might actually have an excellent credit school. Okay, great. So we do recommend checking your credit score as soon as possible just to get an idea of where your eyes just just leave. Leave little go and do it. It's the best thing you can do. The quicker you do it, the more quickly you can talk about any issues with it on. You don't want too much time to pass between finding an issue and doing something about it. So yep. Was check it straight away. Okay, great. Thanks. I think this time it's actually it for the questions. But if you guys, do you have anything else? Just comment on this post oral the other ways that I've said on. Hopefully we will see you guys next week at the same time for the next webinar. So take care. Bye. Thank you, everyone, by