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Interest Rates and Your Credit Scores

If you carry a balance on your credit card, what interest rate you're charged should be very important to you. Obviously, the lower your interest rate, the less you'll pay in finance charges until the debt is paid off.

However, it's important to understand that actual interest rates are not reported to the credit bureaus by your credit issuers, which means they have absolutely no effect on your credit scores. So if a friend tells you that you can improve your FICO scores by simply transferring debt to 0% interest credit cards, you should know you're getting fed yet another common credit-scoring myth.

While this strategy can certainly help you save money by paying less interest, don't expect your credit scores to improve as a result a shifting debt around to cards with lower interest. Real improvements to your credit scores will only be seen as the debt is paid off and your overall credit utilization ratio improves.

on Mon, 2011-10-17 17:00