WHY IMPROVE YOUR PERSONAL CREDIT SCORE?
Poor personal credit can be a big barrier to getting finance for your business. You may think the two separate, but in fact when lenders are checking the personal credit of the management team, what they are really asking is,
“how do the people who run this business manage their debt obligations?”
With this approach, you can see how important personal credit scoring can be to a business finance application, especially if some shareholders are signing personal guarantees as part of the agreement.
If your application is declined based on personal credit history, there are steps you can take to improve your score, and give yourself a better chance next time around.
Even if you are approved for funding, this is still important, as the personal credit score of the main shareholders are a key factor when determining what interest rate is applied to the loan.
If you’re wondering how you can improve your personal credit score, here are…
5 GOOD HABITS OF GOOD PERSONAL CREDIT:
- Ensure your address is up-to-date on all three of these platforms, and on all your bank accounts, loans, credit cards, etc
- Always keep up with your direct debits and loan payments, if you miss one payment, be sure to catch up as soon as you can
- If you are eligible for credit cards, get one! Even if you don’t spend on it, just having an available credit line is good for your score (the higher, the better)
- Try to keep your credit card balance below 50% of the available credit limit. This shows that you are using credit responsibly
- Most importantly, manage your debt-to-income ratio. Don’t over borrow, in the same way that you wouldn’t over-spend
