In today's world, there are a lot of things that its very difficult to live without. One of them, is credit. Can you imagine trying to save up for a car until you had enough cash to just pay for it outright? Do you think you would be able to pay for college tuition and study at the same time? Who would ever own their own home? A life without access to credit when you need it will be severely limited in any number of ways. Everyone, at some time, will be looking for a loan.

If you apply for a loan from a commercial lender, they will do a credit check. It doesn't matter what form the credit takes, it could be a credit or store card, a mortgage, auto finance or a loan to start up your own business. In all of these situations, whether or not you are approved will depend mainly on your credit score. Applying for a loan is not the only time your credit score will be used. Also if you apply for insurance, to rent or lease a home, or even when applying for a job, in all of these situations, your credit rating will be used.

What is your credit score?

Your credit score is a rating system used by financial institutions to assess the risk of giving you credit. It will be based on information such as your address, salary, how much debt you currently have, how well you meet your repayments, whether or not you've ever been made bankrupt. All of this information will be processed and used to give you a specific score. Lenders will then set their interest rates at higher levels for people with lower scores, and decide on a cut off point, where people with a lower score will be denied credit.

You have a right to know the reasons why you have been denied credit. If you have been denied credit because of information in your credit reference, then you can get a free copy of the report. You can also get a free copy of your report once a year from each of the three national credit reporting companies.

Also if there is an error in your report you can notify the reporting company of this and they have a duty to amend your report and make sure it is accurate.

Your credit report is used for many important decisions, so you should make sure at least annually, that it is accurate.