Anyone over the age of 18 can apply for a loan, bank account overdraft, or credit card in the UK. The thing is, not all applications are successful as lenders use a credit scoring system to determine an applicant’s eligibility.

If an applicant has a ‘bad’ credit score, they’re unlikely to get credit from most mainstream lenders. There can be many reasons why an applicant might have a bad credit score, ranging from defaults on previous credit accounts to simply being an identity theft victim.

You’re probably reading this today because you want to get credit — perhaps for a home improvement loan or a credit card to use for emergencies — but you keep getting declined. Here’s what you can do:


Check Your Credit Report

The first thing you must do is check your credit report. Doing so will give you an insight into why mainstream lenders might be declining you for borrowing. There are often telltale signs of why you might have unsuccessful applications.

For example, you may find that you’ve not paid off a loan or credit card in the past and have defaulted that account. It might still show that you owe the lender money and haven’t settled the balance yet.

Fix Any Problems On Your Credit Report

If you have identified any issues on your credit report, the next step is to get them sorted out. The course of action you take will depend on the problem. For instance, if there’s been fraud committed, you need to contact the credit reference agency (and possibly the police).

However, if the issues relate to action taken by creditors for non-payment or late payment of past borrowing, you should contact them and arrange to settle your balance.

Look For Suitable Lenders

Once you’ve done as much as you can with your credit report, the next step is to look for suitable lenders. For example, if you want to borrow some money, search for providers of unsecured loans for bad credit in Google or your favourite search engine.

Similarly, if you need a credit card, you’ll come across lenders that offer credit cards to customers with poor credit scores or perhaps might not have a history of borrowing.

Pay Off Existing Borrowing

Last but not least, you might be getting turned down for borrowing if you’ve already got a lot of loan and credit card debts and haven’t cleared any of the balances yet.

It’s worth bearing in mind that most lenders look at your existing borrowing and take into account your income and expenditure. If they feel you can’t afford to borrow any more money, they will likely decline any new applications from you.

The answer to that problem is simple: pay off your existing borrowing.

Final Thoughts

There can be many reasons why you might not seem like a good ‘risk’ to lenders. But, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to obtain any future borrowing.

Hopefully, the above ideas will have given you some inspiration to help you boost your chances of getting a successful outcome.