What to look out for on your Kudough Credit Report?

Looking at your Kudough Credit Report for the first time can be quite intimidating, but knowing what to look out for will make your credit improvement journey a lot less stressful.

Your credit report is broken into six sections, each section is important in its own way, see below how these can be easily navigated:

1. Kudough Credit Status

This is a calculation of your overall financial health provided by Kudough. This is rated from A+ which is excellent to F which is poor. You will also see an overview of financial behaviors which are helping or what hurting your credit status which provides insight to what areas you need to focus on.

2. Scores

A credit score is a number generated by a mathematical algorithm, based on the statistical analysis of information in your credit report, compared to information on millions of other people.

The resulting number is a highly accurate prediction of how likely you are to pay your bills. A number, roughly between 300 and 999, that measures an individual's credit worthiness.

. Depending on if you are a FREE or Premium Subscriber you will have access to one or all four bureau’s information and credit scores. We recommend our customers to obtain a holistic view with all four bureaus’ when investigating their report. See how you compare to those around you, your peers or even friends.

3. Your Credit and Debt Summary

This section provides an overview of your total debt and its breakdown per category View all your long term and short-term debt, along with your payment behaviour. It is very important to pay your accounts on time and in full to build your credit score. Overall debt utilization is also provided, this is a percentage of the credit that has been available to you and how much of that have you used. To maintain a good credit score it is best practise not to exceed more that 60% debt utilization

4. Defaults

Default data is information on non-payment of an account which is supplied by credit providers to a credit bureau. Often customers are declined for credit and default data is often the cause for decline. It is important to see all four bureau’s data on your profile to ensure you don’t have a default listed with any bureau before reapplying for more credit. Default data where enforcement action has been taken like a “handed over”, “repossession” or “written off” remains on a credit bureau's database for a period of 1 year. Defaults are like judgements, so same applies to your credit and that you can’t take on more credit until the default has been repaid.

5. Judgements

A Judgment is a court order. It is public record information where the court orders an individual to pay a debt. A judgment stays on a Credit bureau's records for 5 years unless a court of law rescinds the judgment before this time. Making sure you stay on top of your judgements by checking every new report monthly to take the necessary action if a judgement occurs. Like a Default, a Judgement on your credit profile will limit your access to credit so ensure you are aware and make the necessary payments in order to avoid a judgement.

    6.Enquiries

An enquiry is recorded whenever you apply for credit or request services from a registered credit provider like home loan, vehicle finance, clothing/furniture accounts, credit card application. Enquiries will reflect for a period of one year on the credit bureaus database before falling off your report. Having more than six enquiries per credit bureau can be an indication of being a high credit risk consumer which reflects negatively on your credit score. Often our clients ask if checking your credit report with Kudough impacts your credit score, MythBusters just called, and we can confidently say it does not impact it, as it is a consumer right to check their own credit score without negative impact.

7. Personal Information

Included in personal information are details pertaining to your employment & career history, ID, Name, Date Of Birth, Physical Address, and sometimes marital status and if you have any dependants. When you apply for credit or financial services, that application form information is submitted by the credit provider to the credit bureau. Making sure your correct personal information is recorded by the credit bureau is important. If any information is incorrect in this section, you can directly dispute and correct this with the relevant credit bureau.

 

While navigating through your credit report maybe daunting, at Kudough we have experienced credit coaches to help you through all the information, and to find the best solution to improve your credit score no matter if you have just begun your journey into the credit world, or if you are feeling overwhelmed with debt, Kudough can help make a difference and get you on the right path to becoming financially free!

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