Monitoring your credit score can be a real headache and often times the financial jargon is difficult to understand, which makes keeping your credit score good, even more of a task. You may have heard the term credit tradelines used frequently when looking at your credit report, but are you aware of what it means? In this article, we will be looking at what credit tradelines are and whether or not they have an effect on your credit score.
What Are Credit Tradelines?
It would be so much more simple if the financial industry called credit tradelines exactly what they are, and that is the accounts that appear on your credit report. Whenever you take out any sort of credit, whether that be a loan, credit card, mortgage or anything else, the account will show up on your credit report and this is known as a credit tradeline.
It is important to be aware that if a debt you owe is sold to another company, which is often the case when you fail to meet repayments and the account is handed over to a debt collecting agency, this will appear as a new credit tradeline rather than merging with the existing account that is already visible.
Depending on the age of the tradeline, there will be a variety of information that can be seen when checking your report. This information can include any of the following;
The name of the creditor type of account you hold with themThe dates the account was initially set upThe current balance The date of the most recent account activity total loan amount or credit limit A history of payments on the account. Any defaults within the last seven yearsThe current account status. How Can Credit Tradelines Affect My Credit Score?
As with anything on your credit report, credit tradelines will affect your overall credit score, whether that is a good effect or a bad one depends on your circumstances. These tradelines are used to calculate your credit score and having accounts in good standing will ensure a higher overall score.
In order to be able to give a credit score, there must be at least one tradeline on your report which has been active within the last six months as this will display the most up to date information. It is an area that needs to be closely monitored since having a lot of tradelines on your report might suggest that you are struggling financially whereas having too few can create an image of not having much experience in dealing with credit. It is important to find a good balance. Each tradeline will stay on your account for varying periods of time:
A negative tradeline can stay on your report for between 7 and 10 years after it has closed. A positive tradeline will remain on your report indefinitely whilst it is open. A positive tradeline will stay on your report for varying lengths after it has closed, depending on the company’s policy.
The best way to ensure that you have a healthy number of tradelines and therefore a good credit score, is to only open accounts when it is needed and to always keep up to date with payments on existing accounts.
Conclusion
Credit tradelines are simply the technical term given to accounts that appear on your credit report and they can impact it both positively and negatively depending on your situation. If you have a lot of open tradelines on your report, you might consider getting a consolidation loan to close these and have one healthy tradeline open. A good way to find a suitable consolidation loan is to use a website such as NowLoan where you can compare loans to find the right one for your situation.
