Tips On Becoming Creditworthy In South Africa

Overview

The first step in assessing your credit worthiness would be to know what your credit score is. This is because your credit score is an indication of how risky you are to lenders. This score takes into account any defaults or outstanding payments you have under your name.  

Make use of your one free credit report each year. Visit the three major credit bureaus in South Africa: TransUnion, Compuscan and XDS to make use of this service. 

If your credit score is good, then you simply need to focus on maintaining this. If it’s not a good score, you could be in for some serious work to change this. However, a bad credit score rating is not permanent, and it can always be turned around. 

For instance by spending wisely, try not to overspend and live beyond your means. Let’s say you qualify for a large loan. You don’t always have to take the offer because if you cannot afford it today, what are the realistic chances of you affording it in the future. 

This will in turn help reduce the amount of debt you have, which is another step in increasing your credit worthiness. Just as simply attempting to pay off your smallest debts off first or focusing on paying off the debt with the highest interest rate first. Alternatively, you can reach out to your debtors directly to arrange a lighter repayment schedule. 

Also keep credit enquiries to a minimum avoid to apply for credit while you’re in the process of improving your score. Because every time somebody does a credit check on you, it will have a negative impact on your score and creditworthiness.