Negative credit rating factors

We all know that credit rating is important, and that there are some obvious ways in which to damage or destroy your credit rating, such as with bankruptcy or County Court Judgments.

There are a number of factors in a credit score, some may not be as obvious as the others, so here is a list of a few more :-

• Being late in paying credit card bills, finance arrangements, utility bills or mortgage payments.
• Regularly using almost all the credit available on your cards.
• A brief credit history or lack of credit history.
• Seeking lots of different types of credit in a short amount of time.

Credit cards and business

Whilst many small businesses will have and use credit cards as an easy way of making everyday payments, perhaps typically for petrol and other expenses such as hotel rooms for business trips, it seems that an increasing number of small businesses are using the cards as an alternative to bank loans.

Common sense suggests that using a credit card in this way, unless the business can be sure of paying off the balance before interest or a significant amount of interest is added, cannot be a sensible move. It indicates the level of desperation for small businesses trying to stay afloat. It also perhaps indicates that banks are not taking a more sympathetic approach to small business loans. In all, this is simply storing up trouble for later, which seems to be endemic at the moment with even Government’s passing the parcel with debts, bailing each other out such that whilst we all know that there is considerable pain out there, the pain isn’t being felt. Sooner or later the reality must bite because one of the other big issues at the moment is the continuing uncertainty.

As regards the credit card issues, in a survey by Hilton-Baird Financial Solutions, the following results were obtained :-

• Credit cards are 1 of the top 2 external sources of finance for small business with 42% using them.
• 25% of those questioned are currently using asset finance.

Even the Bank of England now uses Google !

The impact and power of google and facebook seem to be becoming ever more pervasive. We all know that google is a fantastic tool for research but it now seems that even the Bank Of England finds it indispensable. Apparently, the bank now uses google as a diagnostic prediction tool for predicting trends in unemployment and house prices.

It seems that the bank’s method is to test search volumes for keywords including such items as  “estate agent”, “mortgage”, “unemployed” and “jobseekers allowance” and to then correlate this with actual figures. It seems that there is a high degree of correlation.

Banks regularly breach data rules claims group

A recent survey from consumer watchdog specialists “Which ?” confirms what many people suspect. Data protection is becoming such an onerous task in the digital age that even the largest organisation handling the most sensitive personal and financial; data are struggling with compliance. There is no doubt that most banks take data protection seriously and it is not suggested that breaches are deliberate, but this is a problem which is not going to go away.

The main findings of the Which ? survey were :-

• In the year ending August 2010, 515 viable complaints were sent to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) about alleged data protection breaches by  8 top UK banks and  and building societies.
• Research suggests that only 13% of consumers have heard of the ICO which means that the possible number of serious breaches by banks and building societies could be much higher.
• Barclays Bank was the bank most complained about, with 116 complaints but was not significantly ahead of some others, since Lloyds TSB was the subject of 114 complaints and Santander had 103.
• Breaches complained of varied quite significantly, many related to banks failure to release data about customers when lawfully requested by them, inaccuracy of data about customers, security failures and the most worrying, disclosure of a customer’s data to a third party.
• Complaints against other organisations, including local authorities and HMRC are reducing but those relating to financial services are increasing.
• In response to the above findings the banks pointed out that whilst all complaints arte regrettable, there are some 140,000,000 personal bank accounts in the UK and so the number of complaints is relatively small in this context.

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