How Your Credit Score Works

Somewhere in a bureau's servers, an algorithm has already decided how much it trusts you. That verdict - your credit score - gets consulted every time you apply for anything, and most South Africans have never been told how it is calculated. Time to decode it.

The Ingredients

Four bureaus dominate locally: Experian, TransUnion, Compuscan and XDS. Each month, banks, retailers and credit providers feed them your account behaviour, and scoring models churn it into a number. The recipe weights payment history heaviest by far, followed by credit utilisation (how close to your limits you run), account age, the frequency of new credit applications, and public records like judgements or administration orders.

Score Builders

Nothing exotic: pay every account in full and on time, month after month. Keep balances comfortably under their limits. Let good accounts age instead of churning them. Apply for new credit only when you genuinely need it. Boring, consistent behaviour is precisely what the algorithm rewards.

Score Breakers

Late and missed payments cut immediately. Defaults, judgements and garnishee orders cut deeper and linger for years. Maxed accounts, application sprees and debt review flags each tell lenders the same nervous story. If your report already carries these scars, behaviour alone cannot erase them - that is what ITC removal and full clearance exist for.

Look Before You Leap

You are entitled to a free annual report from each bureau - claim them and read them. Errors and outdated entries are common and fixable. For the repair playbook, see improving a poor score; for professional handling, apply online and let us run the whole process.