A new report from SWNS Digital found that over half of Britons don’t know what their current credit score is and are concerned about a “major impact” on their financial health.
The survey was conducted via OnePoll and commissioned by Experian (LON: Expn), and included more than 2,000 UK adults to celebrate the launch of the new Credit Score Improvement Service, Experian Boost.
The results revealed that a significant percentage were unaware of their scores, and more could not identify the factors that contributed to it.
They look at the “never” credit scores of three in ten people, and then “don’t know what factors they are contributing to” the quarter.
Citing a fifth of British people planning on applying for credit in the new year, SWNS warned about brewing issues as lenders use credit scores when reviewing applications.
The biggest reasons why Brits don’t spend more time monitoring their financial health include lack of time (15%), adequate knowledge (21%) and “scary” of what they find (12%).
Despite this worrying statistics, the survey found that a third of adults have been “more aware” about finances since the start of the pandemic.
This mainly reaches 56% of Britons who have time to sort out their finances. The lockdown measures forced the majority to work from home, giving them the opportunity to save on daily spending such as travel and take-home coffee.
Fifty percent of those surveyed said they wanted to be better prepared for their future, while 54 percent said they had a “secure” advantage of controlling their financial health. 26% of Britons are now “good savings” as a result of the pandemic.
“We’re looking forward to seeing you get a lot of money,” said James Jones, director of consumer affairs at Experian.
“The current situation means that many people had no choice but to pay more attention to their spending.
“We also know that consumers are likely to be actively interested in their overall financial health if they feel they have direct control, whether it’s to work together to build their savings and improve their credit scores.”
