Guide to using Experian
During difficult financial times, keeping on top of your credit score can give you a valuable insight on how you’re really managing. There are three major credit scoring agencies in the UK: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.
As one of the most popular credit reporting services, Experian is one option for people looking to get a better understanding of their credit score and begin improving their credit rating through 2024.
Who are Experian?
Founded in 1996 and based in Dublin, Ireland, Experian is an American/Irish credit reporting company. The service operates in 37 countries across the world and alongside TransUnion and Equifax, makes up one of the ‘Big Three’ credit-reporting agencies.
In addition to delivering credit score and reporting services, the company also offers fraud protection and identity theft services.
Experian’s subscription model
Though Experian offer an initial free trial service of 30 days and allow you to view your credit score and a summary of your borrowing without charge, many of the features are premium and require monthly subscriptions to gain access. These include:
CreditExpert – For £14.99 per month, you can access the Credit Expert service. This will give you daily updates and detailed breakdowns of your total borrowing, allowing you to keep track of all changes to your credit score and get a full look at your credit breakdown. The service also helps you to improve and work on your credit score with personalised tips and predictions to help improve your credit score over time.
Identity Plus – Experian’s identity protection and monitoring service. Identity Plus helps ensure your personal and financial information is protected online by giving daily fraud reports, alerts and web monitoring services that ensure your data is safe from online breaches or being leaked by third parties.
Ultimately, whether it’s worth paying for a premium Experian account or not will depend on how closely you need to monitor your credit record. Since a general overview of your credit score is free, if you only require a cursory look at your credit report then these premium features might not be worth the investment.
Understanding Experian’s rating system
Each credit reference agency measures credit ratings based on their own metrics and uses their own data to come up with a score. This means that each agency may come to a different rating, with unique factors in their scoring that may result in overall different results.
Experian’s credit score is a three digit number ranging from 000-999 with 999 being considered a ‘perfect credit score’ a credit rating is created when you first take out a line of credit.
Your score is measured using a number of financial factors that include existing credit agreements, your track record of making payments and any examples of problem debt, including defaults, CCJs, IVA etc.
Experian takes all of the data related to credit and repayments and calculates your credit rating.
Experian rating grade:
| Excellent | 961-999 |
| Good | 881-962 |
| Fair | 721-880 |
| Poor | 561-720 |
| Very Poor | 000-560 |
Getting an instant credit score boost with Experian boost
There are features exclusive to Experian that can affect your overall credit score, such as Experian Boost that has the potential to instantly increase your credit score using open banking to review your spending habits, with an uplift applied if you can show examples of good spending and examples of recurring payments such as subscription services and monthly payments.
These include tv subscriptions, phone contracts and financing options like Buy Now, Pay Later, that can all show a history of responsible lending and being able to make regular recurring payments.
There could be an instant boost to your credit score if you can demonstrate regular payments like the above.
Experian reviews
Online reviews for Experian through customer rating sites such as TrustPilot, show a generally positive reception from customers who have used the service or interacted with the business previously.
On Trustpilot the company has a 3.8 (great) customer rating based on 56,465 reviews with 51% of ratings being five stars. This generally indicates a positive customer experience from users of Experian’s services.
