What is Credit History?

Credit history is the individual record of a consumer’s credit accounts and related activity. This will include how a consumer has repaid their debt obligations in the years prior and much more. Essentially your credit history is the composition and makeup of the financial decisions you’ve made in the past. Credit reports typically only go back 7 years and after that timeframe items are said to “fall off” the credit report. So, if you’re looking for payment history prior to those dates you might have some trouble finding it.

Negative Remarks on a Credit Report

There a few things you should know about derogatory credit marks. They are visible by lenders until they fall off the credit report in 7 years or so. Both paid statuses and negative remarks on a credit report will show up. The way credit reports work, they show all history regardless of whether it’s good or bad. The United States has a unique credit scoring system as opposed to the rest of the world. By default, all credit reporting data is displayed as opposed to just negative results. In other countries much of the default data assumes timely repayment and lenders mostly focus on the negatives like missed payments, etc.

Account Information

Your credit report shows you debt accounts associated with your name as reported by a given credit bureau. The accounts have particular account information associated with them, for example: the account number, high balance (historical), the last date paid, the credit limit (historical), terms of the account, payment status, last payment amount made, date the account information was updated, the current balance, the loan type, the account type, the responsibility, the opened date and finally even the phone and address of creditor. Besides all this, there will be a payment history section that goes back 7 years outline every single payment on the account (if there are any and if the account goes back that far).

Credit Score

Many consumers often assume that the credit score is the end all and be all when applying for a line of credit. This isn’t the case, other factors go into credit applications like debt to income ratios and your credit history.