Finance Roll

Credit score is the most important factor lenders take into consideration when assessing prospective applicants for cash loans and personal finance. Needless to say, we would all like our credit history to shine and pass any checks without a problem but experience shows that even small shortcomings can have a massive impact on the availability of credit facilities. Apart from the obvious things like timely bill payments and existing debts there are few more less apparent factors you need to take care of to boost your score. One of them is a registration with Electoral Roll.

What is an Electoral Roll? In short it's a UK specific registry held by City Councils which keeps records of all residents eligible to vote. Every year council requires all residents of metropolitan area to register either through post or by filling an on-line form. Even though the process is very straight forward the truth is that most people choose to ignore it for various reasons.

Why does Electoral Roll matter? Electoral Roll matters because it's available to credit referencing agencies which use it to run background checks when calculating credit score. It's one of the ways used to confirm applicants residential addresses so it's very important to get it right.

Why people choose to ignore it? A large portion of people choose to ignore the Electoral Roll because of the apparent amount of work required to fill it out and post back to the local council.

Other factors contributing to credit score. The roll (or register) is certainly very important factor contributing to your credit score but if you are not able to register for some reason try to at least make all the other aspects of your financial footprint shine.

First of all make sure that all the monthly bills are paid in full and on time. If it's a difficult time for you and chances are that you won't make it, call the company and ask for more time. In 9 cases out of 10 there will not be any problem and you will be given a couple more weeks.

Don't open too many credit facilities. There is a thin line between 'good' and 'bad' credit lines because more available credit equals better credit rating, on the other hand however it's better to have fewer facilities offering larger credit rather than more offering smaller amounts of money.

Check your credit report for errors regularly. It is estimated that over half of UK credit reports contain some errors but usually they are not significant enough to affect the rating in a dramatic manner.