There are a number of reasons that you could find yourself with a bad credit rating; from missing a mortgage repayment to having a partner with a lot of debt. Regardless of the cause, having bad credit shouldn’t mean your life should be put on hold.

Having bad credit can be frustrating and many people feel embarrassed about their financial situation. The depth of choice in the UK finance market means that you may still be able to get the products you want and need despite your previous credit history. For example, when you need to replace your car, you will find that there are still many doors open to you.

When you’ve got bad credit, it can be hard to get accepted for finance for anything, even if your financial problems are firmly in the past. If your current car is on its last legs and needs to be sent to the scrap yard, then before you get rid of it you’ll need the reassurance that you will be able to afford a replacement. For most people, buying a vehicle, whether it’s brand new or used is an expense that they can’t afford to pay for in cash, so spreading the payment over a set period of time is the best option.

You may well find that having bad credit will mean that you can’t shop for your new pride and joy at many of the big name dealerships as, like many of the high street banks, their own finance departments or companies will probably turn you down if you applied for a finance package. It is possible to still get a great choice of approved vehicles though and arrange your finance in the one place, even if your credit is not up to scratch.

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Of course you don’t want to make any late payments on your credit cards or loans and affect your credit report and score unless you absolutely have to, but what happens if you’re unable to avoid it? It all depends on whether you’re 30, 60 or 90 days past due. If it’s only one late payment you may be able to dispute it and get it removed from your credit report but if it’s more than one that may be difficult to do. And it depends on whether it’s currently past due or long term past due, and other factors.

Understanding how FICO credit scoring works for late payments will help you avoid late payments and understand which late payments will show up for the long term and which payments won’t.

Put simply, FICO credit scores are used by credit card companies, loan and mortgage companies, utility and insurance companies etc., to predict how reliable you’ll be as a customer and how much they can trust you make the payments.

If you’re 30 days late on a payment it will affect your credit score only when it’s reported to the credit bureau. The same applies to 60-day late payments. However these are considered short term and may not cause any lasting damage to your scores. If this happens over and over then this will not be the case. Also a one time late payment of 30-60 days may never be reported to the credit reporting agency. You can avoid a lot of worry by finding out if the creditor reports a currently 30 or 60-day late payment or not. Many do not.

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When it comes to getting a good credit card deal, it is always imperative to shop around and make a thorough research of the different interest rates before signing up for any specific offer. How important are interest rates in choosing the best card deals and how will you be able to compare low interest rate credit cards?

Studying the Importance of Interest Rates to Find the Lowest Offers

Don’t you just notice that whenever you chance upon any ad for a credit card that there is always a corresponding percentage or interest rate right next to it? The rate could be anywhere from 10% to as high as 20% or more. These percentages are all called the APR or annual percentage rate. This information tells you how much interest you will be paying for on top of the amount that you have borrowed (based on an annual computation).

For instance, if you have an average monthly balance of around $100, then, with an annual percentage rate of 10%, you are going to pay for $10 on top of your initial loan over the course of an entire year. This means that you can compare low interest rate credit cards by computing the repayment amount. Once you come up with the lowest amount, then it’s time to consider the bank that is offering the lowest APR.

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Credit card companies have imposed ‘astonishing’ interest rate rises as families head for their holidays.

It’s a very dirty card to play, but the big companies know that with the state of the economy at the moment many British families will be funding some, if not most if their holiday with a credit card.

Brits are expected to spend £22billion on credit cards during this summer. With 13.8million customers regularly failing to pay off their balances each month, the rate increases will bring a cash bonanza for the card companies.

Not only have credit cards increased the APR but there are extra charges for using your credit and debit cards abroad along with withdrawing cash from an ATM.

Despite the fact that the Bank of England has dropped the base rate to 5%, some credit cards have hiked the APR to a staggering 34.9%. That’s effectively double the original amount some customers were expecting to pay. Customers with outstanding balances may well find this unmanageable.

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This is a very common form of financing offered by most business banks and is basically like having business capital on tap that a business can access at any time. However, this will only be up to a certain amount that has been agreed between the business and the lender (bank). With such financing there will often be no collateral required in order for it to gain approval. But collateral will be required if the credit score criteria of either the individual applicant and/or the business can not be met.

Business line of credit is a true asset of a person’s business and helps to meet any short term working capital needs that they may require. They can use it for things such as covering cash flow shortages or if they need to purchase increased seasonal inventory or they have some unforeseen operating expenses.

The amount of financing that a business is able to receive with this will depend upon the business past revenues and its projected annual cash flow. It will need to show positive cash flow as well as the ability to demonstrate debt coverage in order to be approved for such financing. What this means in layman terms is that it should in most cases be profitable and be able to show that it can repay any debt on a regular monthly payment basis.

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