Why Has My Equifax Score Changed?

Equifax has recently changed its credit score range, so your credit score will most likely have changed too! Instead of being out of 700, your Equifax credit score will now be out of 1000. Equifax still have the same credit score bands, it’s just the credit score “number” that’s different. So you may wonder “why has my Equifax credit score changed, but my band remained the same?”. Unfortunately, even if your score has numerically gone up, you may still be in the same credit score band.

Below you can see a chart of what the Equifax credit score bands now look like.

Your credit score and band will have an impact on what kind of financial products you can access. Below is a list of what each credit score band will mean for you.

How does Experian’s scoring compare to other CRAs?

Equifax is one of the three main Credit Reference Agencies (CRAs) in the UK. Different CRA’s will give you a different score. Below you’ll find a list of the different credit scores and credit score bands for Experian, Equifax and TransUnion

Why have Equifax changed their credit score?

Equifax have said they are changing their credit score range to provide greater clarity to customers. However, they also say “Both the new and the old Equifax Scores use the same underlying data, and use the same underlying credit report information, as the credit scores Equifax provides to lenders.”.

What is the Average Credit Score in the UK?

The average credit score in the UK is fair with Equifax and in the same band with Experian. As each CRA uses a different scale to assign a credit score, it’s important to know each one (this data is correct as of 16.03.2020).

TransUnion: has withheld from releasing an average credit score for the entire country but they do acknowledge that people residing in the Kingston-upon-Thames neighborhood of London hold the highest average score of 547 out of 710.

Equifax: has published the average credit score in the UK to be in the fair category.

Experian: publishes average credit score data based on location and age group via their interactive credit map. The average score among all of its customers is 759 out of 999 which also falls in the ‘fair’ range.